Breaking Comunication
by Johnny Wycliffe
Summary: Soul and Maka struggle with a relatively boring life after ending the First Kishin's existence. Of course, if they knew what was coming, they'd fear for their lives. Based of the Anime ending.
1. Chapter 1: The Emotional Cycle

"Got Ninety-nine souls, but a witch ain't one" Soul marches down the corridors to the crescent moon classroom whistling a merry tune until he get to where professor Stein is teaching a lesson on soul repair. Obviously, if any more Asura-level Kishins appear, it's better to fix the soul rather than destroy it. Obviously. It took an entire city moving to take down one Kishin last time, and there's always new techniques being made to counter them.

Soul let's out a deep breath. The last three ideas hadn't panned out, and the classes were beginning to be a waste of time. All Soul wants to do is go and eat more Kishin eggs so he can become a Death Scythe.

Maka waits outside the door to the classroom, books held tightly to her chest, a panicked look in her eyes which stare at the floor, unmoving.

"Maka? What's wrong?" Soul and Maka had kind of separated after the Asura incident, only really talking to each other whenever they were on a mission together, and even then only about the task at hand. At home they ate in silence, trading turns to cook, and going to their own rooms without any words shared.

In fact, this is the first time they had spoken in a week. Almost a miracle, considering the close proximity.

"Didn't you hear? They said that there might be a witch on campus. Another one! I just... what happens if it's another Medusa?"

Souls bares his teeth. "Then I finally get a witch's soul to add to my collection! C'mon, you're the best fighter in the school! It'll be no problem for 'The Kishin Murderer'!"

"I told you not to call me that!" Maka pushes past Soul, heading for... Well, the girls bathrooms? Maybe just the teacher's area. Whatever.

Soul opens the door and prepares for another day of boring classes, sighing over the thought of Maka.

(O.O)  
VVV

Maka was in fact heading for the girl's bathroom. Stupid, stuck-up, pointy tooth brat. It's not like that fight was something to joke about. Anyway, wasn't he unconscious for most of it? Pathetic.

Maka rubs her face with the water from the sink. Soul never understood anything she tried to tell him these days. What had her so worried was the second half of the news. The witch is supposedly a student, maybe even one in her class. She couldn't hunt down another student from the academy. She just couldn't. It would give her nightmares to kill a kid.

She slumps to the ground outside of the classroom a few minutes later. She had missed the bell, and Stein doesn't let students into class when they're late.

Oh well. She'd just have to get the scoop from Tsubaki once class ends.

Inside the classroom, there is a loud crash, a bunch of yelling (Did someone scream "fire"?) and above it all, Professor Stein raising his voice to call someone.

Maka throws open the door just in time to see Kim riding Jackie in broom form fly right past her into the hall.

Professor Stein pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at Maka.

"I was hoping not to get this reaction from her. Ah well. Maka, can you please fetch Sid?"

"Um, sure! I'll go right away." Maka had entered the room when Stein called her, and several students had rushed past and gone after the Kim.

When she tried to exit, Soul was blocking her path.

"What's you deal today? First the tantrum before class, now letting witches go free? You're sure on a roll today." Soul had that toothy grin Maka associates with condescension plastered across his face.

Maka grabs the nearest book (Ox's copy of "Shinigami studies III") and decks Soul with it, hard enough to give him a nosebleed and throw him against the opposite wall. The rest of the room was dead silent as Maka walked out.

(O.O)  
VVV

Soul woke up in the infirmary with Death the Kid and BlackStar looking at his face.

Kid was saying something to BlackStar. "No, see, unless you make that side taller, it's asymmetrical."

"I still don't see any difference."

"That's because you strength is muscle, not mental. If you could apply your brains to this task, or any task at all, you would see-"

"HA! I don't care, I'm BlackStar!"

Then they notice Soul was awake.

"Hey buddy! That was hilarious! Whop!" BlackStar proceeds to swing an imaginary book at Soul's head.

"I believe he means, 'How are you feeling,' or 'Are you alright?'" Kid leaned over so he was just in view without soul turning his head.

Soul gave a weak grin. "Nah, he probably means whop."

BlackStar's smile fades, and he asks Soul "What going on between you and Maka? You two have a fight?"

"No, nothing like that. We're just having some trouble communicating." Soul sighs and lets his head drop to the side. There he sees himself in the mirror-

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DRAW ON MY FACE?!"

"Well, Maka told us that you deserved it, and to draw pen-" Kid began, but just then Marie popped in with pain medication. She stopped opening the bottle halfway after getting a good look at Soul.

"Were you two drawing on Soul's face? If so, those better be dog bones."

BlackStar jumps onto the bed and yells "Yep! Would've been done too, if picky over here hadn't insisted that the right and the left match perfectly."

Marie hid her mouth behind her hand. Soul suspected she was smiling. "Well, you two better knock it off. Lord Death wants to see you, as well as your partners."

After they had both left to find their weapons, Marie got a washrag and wiped the ink off of Soul's face. "I can't believe how hard Maka hit you, Soul. She actually cracked your skull and three of your ribs. I still cant figure out how hitting you on the head cuased rib fractures, but Nygus said it wasn't going to be too much of a problem. What did you say to her?"

"Eh, I guess I was just being a jerk. Lately, she and I have been drifting apart. Something to do with the incident with the Kishin, I think. It's been getting harder to synchronize soul wavelengths, and we don't talk to each other."

"Oh dear. Well, I'd recommend patching things up as soon as possible! You two are just so cute together, I wouldn't want to see anything happen to that!"

Soul rolls his eyes. "Yeah, thanks professor." What a hopeless romantic.

Marie fussed over him for a good fifteen minutes before she left, scrubbing his face gently to little effect (though she didn't tell him that), then telling him to ring a bell on the side table if he needed anything. What she didn't do was put the bell within his reach.

Soul lay there in the darkness for at least an hour, wondering what exactly he had done to earn Maka's scorn. Yeah, he teased her. Same as always. Nothing new about that. For the past three months, he had cooked every other night, and hadn't screwed up at all. Well, maybe once or twice, but still. Much better track record than before.

Soul convinces himself that the differing resonance is an effect, and not the cause of the gap between the two of them.

At the end of the hour, Soul hears Maka outside the door, talking to the nurse in charge. Soul quickly gets into a comfortable position and feigns sleep. Actually talking to Maka seems like a bad idea all of a sudden.

Maka eventually walking into the room and sits on the edge of the bed.

"I-I'm s-sorry, Soul," her words were half lost in tears "I've j-just been under a lot of s-stress lately, and I was wrong to hit you with the book."

Soul opens his eyes a crack and sees Maka staring at the ceiling. A small halfhearted smile on her lips. "The nearest book was Ox's copy of Shinigami studies III. I swung the book hard enough to shake the pages out, believe it or not. I just spent the last hour glueing it back together." The smile fades away from her face.

Maka sits there on the edge of the bed for a few more minutes, then lies down next to Soul on the bed.

"I'm sorry for being a bad partner," Maka starts to choke up, so Soul decides that he better "wake up" before she embarrasses herself further.

He smacks his lips and opens his eyes slowly, looking around in different directions before settling on Maka. "Oh, hello. What's up?"

Maka startles, and sits back up on the bed. "Soul! You're awake!" she leans down and hugs him, squeezing Soul's broken ribs.

"Ouch! My ribs..."

"Sorry! Sorry. Oh. Um, are you okay? I'm, really sorry about earlier-"

"Nah, it's my fault. I've been kind of a jerk lately, not considering what you went through recently."

"Yeah, but we should be able to do this together still, right?" Maka's eyes glaze over. "I really don't know what to do without you. We've come so far, almost twice already, and we've been a good team and-"

Soul attempts to turn his head unsuccessfully. "Don't worry about it. We're partners, right?"

Maka returns his smile and squeezes his hand. Funny, Soul couldn't remember grabbing Maka's hand.

"Wait a sec, is there ink on your forehead?" Maka leans in real close, reminding Soul of Blair, without the suffocation. "Are those... Did BlackStar visit you while you were asleep?"

"Yeah. I guess Marie wasn't able to get them off."

"I'm going to find him and draw things on his face for you, okay?"

"Sure. Just make sure Kid's not around. He'll want you to draw them symmetrical."

"Really? Was he there when BlackStar did this?"

Soul nods. Painfully.

"I'll draw on his face too then. Asymmetrically."

Then she got up and left with a much happier demeanor.

Despite himself, Soul also felt better already.

(O.O)  
VVV

"Unfortunately, we cannot continue with our previous lesson until Kim and Jacqueline are... _retrieved_, so for now we are going to have a completely unrelated lesson. You will all separate into either the meister group or the weapon group, and we will have a contest." Professor Stein draws the word contest on the blackboard. "After you all split into your designated groups, further instructions will given."

Soul and Maka head to the opposite ends of the hall, Soul and the rest of the weapons nearest the door, Maka and the meisters against the bleachers across the room.

Stein swivels his chair around a few times. "Alright, everyone to the front entrance to the school. Stay in your groups please."

Once everyone had made it outside (Kid had gotten distracted by a small candle sconce that was slightly crooked) Stein proceeded to explain his experiment to the kids. Each meister would try out each weapon, and whoever was the most versatile wins. Simple, right?

Soul kept having a problem where as soon as anyone touched him, they screamed and threw him aside. He was getting pretty battered up by the time BlackStar got to him.

"Hey Soul. You ready?"

"Hey, can't go worse than last time, right?"

BlackStar jumps high in the air, does a flip and swoops down to grab Soul, who had also jumped, just much less high, and transformed midair.

As soon as BlackStar touched the hilt, Soul knew something was off but BlackStar held on stubbornly.

They landed with a large thud, and BlackStar swings Soul back into a stance imitating Maka's. "See? I, the amazing BlackStar, can master any weapon!"

Tsubaki was the first to see it.

BlackStar was beginning to get the stripes that usually show up when he wields the demon sword, and Soul is leaking black blood, which is then crawling up BlackStar...

Death the Kid, wielding the little twin pots fire and lightning, knocks BlackStar over. The black blood all falls to the ground, and Soul changes back to human form, dripping red and black blood from various tears in his body.

Stein quickly scoops up Soul and rushes towards the medical section, calling back over his shoulder "Please continue practicing. We only have until class ends before Lord Death shows." only a few student heard him mutter "Twice in two days. This kid's on a roll."

After a few seconds of shock, mostly everyone had returned to trying out new weapons. Death the Kid was showing remarkable ability to resonate with anyone, but he won't try it unless the weapon is symmetrical. The twin pots were good candidates, but after Kid realized that they had different words on them, he creeped himself out enough that had to stop. Tsubaki could go with almost anyone, but the meisters had a hard time utilizing her form changes, since nobody had experience with a weapon that could change. BlackStar used everyone, even though he never could resonate, and as a consequence was almost passed out from the strain of lifting weapons too heavy even for him. The Thompson twins couldn't resonate with anyone else, so they resorted to switching off holding each other and firing at Blair, who had inexplicably shown up. Blair seemed to be enjoying herself, dodging pink balls of energy while simultaneously causing nosebleeds in every male she stepped in front of. It didn't help that she had only a bikini on. In December.

Maka was having a bit of luck with the other weapons. Anyone who had a rigid personality seemed to work well. Interestingly, she could wield Harvar quite well, despite him being the weapon of her school rival.

After half an hour had passed, Death came out of the building and clapped his massive angular palms together.

"Alright everyone. Line up please. Except you Maka, Stein wants you in the infirmary."

Maka quickly grabs her stuff and races towards the infirmary.

Death's voice fades away as Maka retreats into the school. "Now, the objective of the exercise was to resonate with weapons other than you own. BlackStar, you managed to wield every weapon, but you resonated with none of them..."

(O.O)  
VVV

Soul is in bad shape. His eyes are peeled back and unblinking. His face is set in a grimace of pain. Nygus meets Maka at the door.

"Soul has been completely unresponsive, and his soul is fading, Stein said that you were able to do something for him during the fight with the Kishin, so he asked Lord Death to fetch you." Nygus sighs. "I don't know what happened, but it seems that Soul is chemically changing all his blood into the black blood. At least he's breathing, for now."

Maka has yet to look away from the corpse-like Soul.

"I'll do my best."

She moves over to Soul, sits down on the bed beside him. He looks so disturbing with his face contorted. She shifts herself right next to his head and presses her forehead against his. Before she could attempt to pull Soul from the shadows, she had a fleeting thought about just how often Soul had saved her.

"So you're willing to die for your meister, huh Soul? Well, if you ever do, I'm going to get Death to give you back." Maka barely breathes the words. Then she attempts to connect soul wavelengths, and is dragged into the darkness.

(O.O)  
VVV

Inside of Soul is the ballroom that she had seen twice so far. The first time had been when she was fighting Crona over the Kishin. Then, she had almost been pulled into the madness. This time Soul sits in front of a piano slumped over, unmoving. Maka barely registers that she is wearing a black dress before rushing over and shaking him by the shoulder.

"Soul! Wake up! Wake up Soul!"

He is completely unresponsive.

"Looking for me?" A second Soul appears out of the shadows, looking disdainfully down at her. He had somehow gained an extra foot since she last saw him, which was absurd. "I don't know why. I'm perfectly fine down here, without you around."

"That's a lie. You're completely unresponsive!"

"Maybe my physical body is, but down here, I'm perfectly content to sit here and play my piano. Without you."

"What?"

"For all of your so called smarts, you seem pretty dim to me. Let me state it clearly. You are a horrible meister. I've done everything I could for you, almost died multiple times, and for what? All I got from the bargain was a scar, black blood, and pain. Since we defeated the Kishin, you've been off in you own little world. Look up Maka! Se the world progressing around you?"

"Soul, I-"

The Soul vocalizing starts to get distraught. "NO! You have talked enough! You and your perfect grades, high and mighty attitude. You are the dumbest meister ever! You don't even care what happens to me, just that I become a death scythe so you can displace your father!"

Maka is visibly crying now. "Soul, I didn't mean it like that! You know that! I do care about you!"

"LIES! You never have, and never will! Even BlackStar would be a better partner, and he sucks!"

"You don't mean that! You can't mean that! He's the one who put you in here!"

"And until you barged in, I was enjoying myself!"

Behind Maka, the first Soul straightens up and raises his hands ready to play, but his face remains locked in place.

"Now, I want you to leave. I want to play." the second Soul says from behind her.

Maka turns around, the frills on her dress making a faint swishing noise. "And what if I don't?"

"Then I'll force you out."

The standing Soul reaches out to the side and turns his arm into the blade now so familiar to Maka. Then he charges her.

She steps around his initial attack, and catches a glimpse of his eyes. The pupils have been replaced with the three vertical eyes of the Kishin Asura.


	2. Chapter 2: Cold Fury

"So, the winners of the contest," Death's voice magically fills the area so that no matter where you were, you heard his voice clearly. "are weapon Tsubaki and meister Cooper.

They will each be given a special assignment, and may choose any partner they wish to go with them."

Death once again clapped his giant hands, dismissing the students. Sid approaches death from the side.

"Maka seems to have dived into Soul. They've been frozen in place for a good five minutes now, and Nygus is starting to get worried."

"Hmm. I think I'll ask their friends to stop by and figure out what is going on. Tsubaki won, after all, so maybe she can help."

"Got it. I'll round them up."

Sid steps away from Death and started heading after Tsubaki, and Death the Kid approaches death.

"Father, I wanted to ask you something."

"What is it?" after the fight with the Kishin was over, Asura mentally projected an image into my mind. At least, I think he did. It might have been a small bit of his madness. However, I felt it was my duty to ask you this. Am I your first son?"

Death's mask reveals nothing, but his voice certainly betrays a hint of caution. "These are matters best not spoken of outside. In the meantime, why don't you go visit soul? He's apparently in need of some help."

"Fine." Kid looks over his shoulder. "Liz! Patty! Let's go!"

From off in the crowd, Patty yells back "Okay!" to the accompaniment of more pistol shots, giggling and the occasional sultry meow.

(O.O)  
VVV

Inside Soul's... soul... Maka is busy fending of the attacks of the madness crazed version of her weapon.

My weapon, she thinks, not my partner. That's what this stems from. Being called a tool is almost as bad as being called stupid. In either cases, someone else uses you.

"So Maka, feeling tired yet? I don't. I've never felt so good in my life!"

Swipe.

"I know what's bugging you! I'm sorry I treated you as nothing more that a tool to be used when needs, you deserve better!"

"Of course I do! I deserve to be wielded by Death himself, and no other!"

Swipe.

"Fine then. Kill me if you don't think I'm worth anything!"

"Don't you think I'm trying?"

Swi-

Maka puts her guard down and stands right in front of Soul.

At the last second, Soul stops his blade, the point of the scythe pricking her arm. A single drop of blood stains her arm.

Maka steps in, grabs his one arm, gingerly touches his other scythe arm, and the Soul by the piano begins to play the song that he had played for her they day they became partners.

Maka steps in time to the music, pulling Soul around in a slow circle. Soul's eyes start to coalesce into one pupil, but Maka can see the madness struggling to regain control.

"Just relax Soul. It's just your imagination. There's nothing that can separate us."

The madness retreats even more, and Soul's voice becomes softer. "Thanks. I needed that."

Finally, all the madness is gone. The Soul by the piano has vanished, but the music continues, and they dance for what seems like forever.

At least, until Maka spikes Soul's foot with her heel.

"Oops! Sorry. I guess you should lead?" Her smile was heart melting.

(O.O)  
VVV

Maka and Soul both jerk awake with a start. Looking down on them are Tsubaki, BlackStar, Death the Kid, and Patty and Liz. BlackStar has a pen in his hands, a proud smile on his face. Tsubaki looks apologetic. Patty is laughing, Liz is sighing, and Kid is busy budging a picture on the wall over a few micrometers.

"Hey, they're awake!" Tsubaki gleefully grabs Maka in a hug. "You guys were gone for fifteen minutes, and we were starting to get worried."

"We're both fine. Thanks to Maka." Soul looks a lot happier then he had since the day they killed the Kishin.

Patty yells (not that she needed to, she just did) "Let's have a party! A everyone's happy again and Tsubaki party!"

Soul looks over at her with an amused smile. "Tsubaki's not part of everyone now?"

"Didn't you know? Tsubaki is deemed 'the easiest to use' by Death himself!" BlackStar yells, just as loud as Patty.

"Don't say it like that! It makes me sound like a slut!"

(O.O)  
VVV

"Thanks for hosting this here, Kid." Maka looks around at the grand hall, filled with students from the academy. Officially, the party was for both of the winners of the contest, but Cooper hadn't shown up, so it was pretty much Tsubaki's show. She had chosen to wear a flowing blue sparkling dress that Maka thought looked perfect on her. After about an hour, Maka had figured out that the dress was pretty much the same as her regular clothes, just one color and made of finer material. Tsubaki's always ready for action, Maka thinks.

Even BlackStar had gotten dressed up nicely for the occasion, and had temporarily stopped talking about how awesome he was. He instead decided to talk about how awesome Tsubaki is. Incessantly.

Soul had just stood in a corner the entire hour, occasionally snapping his fingers along to the tune of the record playing. People were either avoiding him or pestering him with questions, most of which he just brushed aside or completely ignored.

Maka approaches him with her hands clasped behind her back. "Hey Soul, could you play the piano? We haven't heard you play in a while."

Soul looks up at her. They had both agreed that their shared dance would be kept private, and now Soul think maybe it was a ploy to get him to play here. Oh well.

"Sure, why not? Just don't laugh, okay?"

BlackStar had crept up beside them when they weren't looking, and now he let's out a howl of laughter. "I, the great BlackStar, laugh at whatever I like. Uh, that is, if Tsubaki doesn't mind..." his demeanor changes a bit for the second half of that statement.

"Heh. You're actually trying to put Tsubaki first, aren't you?" Soul pushes himself of the wall and heads for the piano at a leisurely pace.

"Right! She's almost as big a star as I am, you know!"

"Almost?"

"Well, I managed to surpass god with her help, so I guess she's surpassed god too by this point. She's the best weapon ever!"

Soul reaches the piano, sits down and prepares to play. The entire building quiets down, and someone removes the record from the player.

Tsubaki pulls up a chair next to the piano and sits forward in it. Maka follows suit.

Soul suddenly slams his hands down onto the keys, sending notes high into the air. People look startled at the abrupt sound. His hands move wildly, dancing back and forth over the keys producing no discernible pattern. Everyone just stares at him, unable to find a rhythm to dance to in the hauntingly beautiful playing.

Soul puts his all into this performance, playing for a good twenty minutes without pause. The notes never do pick a rhythm, but not a single person in that room would say that his playing was anything short of spectacular. By the end, he is drenched in sweat.

Once Soul had finished playing, the ballroom erupting with clapping. Soul takes a bow, shuts the piano, and slowly walks back over to his corner, as if nothing had happened.

(O.O)  
VVV

The next day, Soul woke up with a feeling of refreshment. He had finally moved past his mental block and played for a group, and nobody had laughed. Maybe he was getting better at playing.

Maka bursts into the room with Blair perched on her head. "Breakfast's ready!"

Soul climbs out from under the covers and straightens his hair. It had been his turn to cook, but someone had turned off his alarm clock. Or maybe he hadn't set it. Huh. It's broken.

"Thanks for making breakfast. I'm sorry I slept in."

Blair, now in human form and mercifully clothed, meows at him. "Silly, we made sure that you wouldn't wake up. Your playing was impressive last night, you know. Better than some of the records you listen to."

"Thanks. What's up Maka? Why did you agree to this?"

"It was my idea. Today, we're going after a witch, and we'll get you that much closer to being a death scythe."

"Sounds like a plan."

After they ate, they said their goodbyes to Blair in the vain hope that she'd stay at home like a good cat.

The walk to school was uneventful, but once on the grounds people began approaching Soul to congratulate him.

After the fifth or sixth one, Soul whispers to Maka, "I wonder if it'll be this bad if I ever become a death scythe."

Maka responds in a whisper as well. "It'll probably be worse. Then, everyone will want to be your meister."

"I won't even talk to the ones that dropped me, then."

By this time, they had reached the locker rooms.

Soul had a surprising amount of fan mail in his locker. He shuffled it up and hands the top one to Maka.

"Here. Why don't you read this? There most be about fifty of these, and I can't read that many before class."

Maka opens the letter and gets a face full of some bad perfume. "Wow, uh-*cough*- this smells. Let's see what it says. 'Dear Soul, your playing at the ball last night was fantastic. I was wondering if you would consider training with me sometime. Afterwards we could go for dinner or something and maybe even-'" Maka stops talking at this point and stares at the paper in growing horror. Her cheeks are bright red by the time she hands the letter back.

Soul reads the letter. "Heh. I'm guessing that you're 'miss snooty britches.' you know what? I think I'll just-" Soul throws the papers up with one hand, and slices them in half with the other in scythe form. "These better stop, cause if they're all like that, I may just have to kill them, and not the letters."

Maka's face returns to a more normal color, and they continue walking towards the classrooms with the letters as good as forgotten.

Class turned out to be even worse. Every single girl in the room squealed as Soul entered the room. Soul attempted to reverse right out, but he bumped into Maka, almost knocking her over. They both retreat out of the room.

"Maakaaaa, if I have to stay in that classroom, they need to shut up." Soul was pulling a face she had never seen him wear before.

"What's wrong?"

"Squealing girls are so not cool."

"You're actually perturbed by this, aren't you?" Maka hides a smile behind her hand.

"Yeah. I mean, if I go in there, it'll be like living with four- well, there's only twenty of them, so three Blairs. It'll be madness!"

"At any other time, I'd give you a hard time about using the term madness for something so innocent, but I think you might be right."

"So what do we do?"

"Go in and let Professor Stein take care of them?"

"Let me take care of who?"

Professor Stein is right behind them, leaning over the back of his office chair.

"Professor Stein! You have to save me from those girls! They're insane!"

"How are they insane? I think I'm the craziest one here."

"Soul played the piano last night, and now he has fangirls."

"Sound like it should be entertaining. If neither of you are in class in five minutes, you both get an 'E' for today."

With that he enters the room, leaving a shocked Maka and Soul staring after him.

"Well there goes that plan. Any other ideas?"

"Sure! Go as a couple!" a small voice comes from behind them.

Tsubaki is looking a bit pale and is leaning on BlackStar. "That way no one would bother you, cause you'd be taken."

"First of all, ew. Second, what's wrong? You don't look well." Maka steps closer to take the burden off of BlackStar.

"Oh nothing. I think someone spiked the drinks. I woke up all sick."

"Yeah. I had to sleep on the floor so that I didn't get puked on." BlackStar has rings around his eyes, and Maka suspected he probably hadn't slept much at all.

Tsubaki rests against the wall for a minute, then get back up and tries to go through the door. BlackStar catches her right before she falls, and they both go in together.

Soul puts his hand around Maka's shoulder. "Well, Maka? Ready to become a couple?"

Maka unsuccessfully tries to push him away. "No! I will not!"

"Come on, it'll be fun! Lie your head down on my shoulder."

"No! This is absurd!"

"Fine, I'll just put my head on your shoulder then."

Soul rests his head on her shoulder, and they stand there for a few seconds before soul speaks up. "So? Aren't we going in?"

"I changed my mind. I'll put my head on your shoulder, but only if we REALLY have to do this."

"Don't worry, it's just pretend, no actually kissing or dates. We're cool?"

Maka gives a short laugh. "Sure. We're cool."

They enter, Maka's head on Souls shoulder.

At first, there is a total, stretching silence.

Then Professor Stein started laughing. "You know kids, I was expecting something a little less amusing than this." He then turn to the stunned class. "Who says that we should let the two love-birds go off on a date instead of coming to class today?"

The class erupted with laughter, cheers, and wolf whistles.

"It's agreed then. See you both tomorrow." Stein dismisses them with a wave.

Maka drags Soul out of the room.

Tsubaki hears some yelling from outside the classroom. She really hope they won't hate her for that embarrassment. There's no predicting Professor Stein.

(O.O)  
VVV

"So what you're telling me is that Asura was actually my brother?"

Death the Kid and Death sit in the Death room, drinking Death tea. (OK, regular tea, but I had a thing going, got it?)

"Well, close enough. He wasn't really your brother, more like, a different fragment of my soul that decided to go rogue."

"Alright then. I have another question for you father, one you must answer honestly and fully."

"What is it? I'm all ears!"

Patty, sitting behind Kid, whispers to Liz next to her "He's got no ears. He's definitely not all ears."

Liz just give her a quick glare.

"I need to know if only Shinigami can become Kishin. As far as I know, there's only ever been one, and if he wasn't a normal soul, then how do we know if the people with what we call 'Kishin eggs' are actually a risk. They could just be damaged souls from all the killing, and not actually a major risk."

"Yes, well, as you said, there's only one Kishin. All I know is that Asura was the first one to become a Kishin, and his soul cracked and crumbled like the souls we harvest before he went mad. You may be right, but you might also be wrong. If another being ever becomes a Kishin, we can figure out the circumstances much more clearly. Until then however, we don't have a large enough sample size, as Stein would say."

"You're right, father. I am sorry for wasting your time."

"No matter. You would have learned this sooner or later."

Patty's voice pipes up. "So, does that mean we can eat whoever we want, and not become a Kishin?"

Kid doesn't even have to tell her it was a idiotic thing to say. Liz quite took care of it.

(O.O)  
VVV

After Soul managed to calm Maka down, they decided that they should probably head after the witch. After all, they didn't have any classes thanks to... General all around stupidity. Maka felt she couldn't rightly blame Tsubaki, she was just trying to help. Soul had honestly thought it was a good idea, so he was the target of her ire. It was convenient that he couldn't escape without abandoning her, something she was convinced that he would never do.

"So do we know anything about this witch? Or are we going in blind?" Soul sits on the ground, looking into the forest.

"Maybe you should have read the assignment."

"I, uh, wasn't there when you turned it in."

"Too bad then."

There is silence.

"Should I just turn into a scythe now? Or is there a reason that we are walking together?"

More silence.

"You know what Maka? I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I dragged you into that room. I can't fix that now that I've done it. Why don't you tell me what you want me to do to make up for it?"

"If I tell you, it'll lose it's meaning."

"Bull. Maka, I'm not a mind reader. You have to tell me what you want."

"Huh. Just transform already."

"Got it."

Maka trudges through the swampy forest all the while being pestered by Soul offering different ideas. She really didn't want anything in particular yet, but he was giving her some good ideas. Of course, deep down, she knew she had liked one of his first suggestions: to go eat dinner together in a fancy restaurant, possibly candle lit...

"I know! Do you want my to castrate your fath-"

"Ew, and you already said that."

Suddenly, the forest opens up to a clearing. In the middle is a small hut with smoke coming out the chimney.

"This looks inviting." Soul comments to Maka through their telepathic link. "All it needs is a sign that says 'witches live here.'"

"Just get ready to kill someone, okay?"

"Sure."

Maka moves into the opening slowly, looking for any sign of the witch. As far as either of them can tell, there is no one else on the area.

"Maka, are you using your soul perception?"

"Yes, if there's a witch, she's using soul protect."

"Great."

Maka ever so slowly creeps up to the house and peeks in a window.

Soul hears two things in rapid succession. The first is "drop soul protect." The second is "monkey mon monkey key."

Maka ducks out of the way as a huge boulder soars just overhead flung over the roof from the other side of the building.

"Soul! Ready!"

"Do it!"

"Soul resonance!"

The Genie Hunter technique makes Soul into a fearsome blade, which easily tears the next rock in half. Along with ripping the roof off.

The witch managed to dodge the attack, and Soul got his first good look at the witch. Dressed in brown colors, she is swinging form a tree by a prehensile tail.

Maka wastes no time in sending a second swipe of the genie hunter towards the witch.

"How rude. You didn't even let me tell you my name." the witch dances from tree to tree, easily avoiding the attacks. "I'm Rusa, by the way. Pleasure to meet you. Ook-ook."

Maka gets as close to the monkey witch as possible, then uses the Genie Hunter to cut down all of the trees in the vicinity. Maybe we should look into being lumberjacks, Soul thinks off-handedly.

"Ook, clever. But still, you missed one."

It's true. Soul notices that one tree is still close enough for the monkey to jump to.

Just as Maka planned, she did jump for it.

Maka aims for the air where she predicts the witch will be, and sure enough, the Genie Hunter connects, slicing deep into the small form. The witch goes flying back towards the hut, and Maka gets there before she can escape.

"What's with you girl? Are you mute? You haven't said a thing this entire battle." the witch struggles to stand up.

"I can talk" Maka replies, raising Soul up above her head. "You're just not worth wasting words on." If anyone had cared to look, Maka's face was contorted into an expression similar to the ones she made while mad by way of black blood.

The witch tries to transform into a human at the last instant, cause the final dead form to be a twisted half woman half monkey thing. Fortunately for Soul's sanity, the witch decayed quickly and leaves behind her soul.

Soul steps up and grabs the glowing orb. "That was cool thinking Maka. Let's go home and report to Death."

And with that, Soul unhinged his jaw and swallowed the soul.


	3. Chapter 3: The Wolf and the Frog

"Congratulations on retrieving the witches soul, you two. How many more souls do you need, ten?"

Maka smiles at Death. "Only seven more, Lord Death!"

"Wonderful. Please make sure not to collect any cat souls this time, please."

Soul give death his sloppy grin. There's still a small bit of witch soul stuck to his teeth. "Ah, c'mon. I was going to ask Blair if we could use seven of her eight remaining souls so that I could have an easy ride."

"Did Blair actually tell you she had nine souls?"

"Yeah, the day I ate one of them."

"Interesting. Every other magical cat told me that they had three. Of course, she was... not the most reliable cat. Anyway, you two are dismissed. Call me if you need something."

The mirror in Soul's bedroom stopped showing the face of Death and started reflecting their faces instead.

"Thanks, Maka. This soul has me all fired up!"

"Well I'm exhausted. Can you make breakfast tomorrow?"

"Sure, no problem."

Maka exits the room and heads for hers. Soul watches her go, then flips off the lights and flops into bed.

"It's not very nice saying that to Death." Blair suddenly pounces onto Soul in the bikini she was wearing a few days ago. She really needs to figure out that it's almost the new year, and freaking cold outside.

After the initial nosebleed associated with Blair had subsided, Soul asks "What?"

"Us cats have nine souls, but we all made an agreement not to tell him that."

"Sorry, but you told us. And you never said not to tell him." Soul wipes the blood off of his upper lip.

"Oh well. I guess I'll just have to find a way to convince him I was joking."

"Great. Now get out you catty slut. I want to sleep."

"Don't forget your alarm!"

Soul reaches over to activate his alarm, but to his dismay it's missing it's handle to set the alarm.

"Blair!"

(O.O)  
VVV

The next day of classes went remarkably smoothly considering the uproar of yesterday. Soul got about half as much fanmail as he did the previous day, nobody screeched at him when he entered a classroom, and best all, nobody was teasing him about Professor Stein's date excusion. Nobody was teasing Soul, but Maka...

Maka got teased.

"Hey Maka, did you know that you got the highest grade in the class? You got a heart!"

"Hey Maka, Professor Stein said that he's instituting a policy that makes it so you have to marry your weapon if it becomes a death scythe!"

"Hey Maka, your papa loves you!"

The last one really hurt.

Interestingly, she wasn't so much hurt that all the students were jeering at her, but that they thought she was an idiot for going for Soul.

Not that she actually had, but...

Well...

It was an appealing thought.

When the first class had started, and all the people had shut up, she found herself in her normal seat, right next to Soul.

Soul had moved his chair over to give her as much space as possible, which Maka felt was a nice gesture, but not the one she needed right now.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she inched her chair closer to Soul's. When they were within touching distance, she gently poked him in the rib.

"Owch." Soul manages to keep it low, but still, several heads turn.

Maka quickly pulls her hand back.

The rest of the class was uneventful. Kid, BlackStar, Tsubaki, Liz, and Patty had all agreed to meet up during lunch, so it was a surprise when Tsubaki was the only one there when Maka and Soul arrived at the meeting place.

Tsubaki has an apologetic look on her face. "I'm so sorry, I honestly tried to stop them-"

"Surprise!" Liz and Patty jumped up out of the shadows, BlackStar jumped off the ceiling, and Death the Kid hit a light switch that put a spotlight over a small table set for two.

Soul sighs. "You know, we were just doing that yesterday to ward off the stupid squealing girls. If we were pretending to be a couple, now we have pretend broken it off."

Before any of the rest of the group could answer, Maka chimes in. "Thank you! It looks like you all did a wonderful job!"

"Yeah! Kid arranged the forks and stuff, Tsubaki made the food, the sisters are going to be waitresses, and I'm going to be the photographer!" BlackStar starts waving the camera in Soul's face. Soul snatches it before he gets a chance to take any pictures.

At least, Soul hopes he hadn't taken any pictures yet.

"C'mon Soul, they made all this effort just to make us a meal!"

"Maka, they wanted to take pictures. They want to fuel the rumor mill."

"Does it really matter?"

"I thought so. If you don't care, let's eat."

Soul and Maka sit down at the table, and Patty and Liz move into the light bearing plates. Tsubaki had made each of them a perfect size meal.

They eat for a while, occasionally remarking upon the quality of the food. Maka is the first to get down to business.

"Alright. Soul."

"Y-Yes?"

"I think it's time that we discussed something."

"Okay, but, um,"

"Wait a second, hear me out. We need to finalize this."

Soul went from being nervous to confused and nervous. "Finalize? That's an odd way to put it."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah?"

"Okay then, I use the term 'seal the deal.'"

"Nope. That's worse."

"Whatever. We need to figure out how to get you your last seven souls."

Soul relaxes into his seat. "Right. That's exactly what I was thinking."

"Wait, what were you thinking?"

"Uh, how to get-?"

"No, that's not right."

"SOULS. WE NEED SEVEN OF THEM."

"Why are you trying to change the subject?"

"Never mind that. Do you have a plan?"

"Yeah. We've both got good grades right now, correct?"

"Yeah. Sure. We'll go with that."

"We can probably afford to go off and take seven assignments in a row, and complete your collection."

"Sounds good to me." Soul stands up out of his chair, gathers up his belongings, and prepares to leave.

Maka stands up as well and walks over to him. "We'll start tomorrow, ok?"

"Sure."

"And Soul?"

"What's up?"

Maka kisses him on the cheek "Thanks."

(O.O)  
VVV

Tsubaki stands before Death, who, just moments before, had called her into his chambers.

"Tsubaki, since you won the challenge, you get to go on a special mission. It promises lots of souls, as well as an opportunity to work with someone less... Difficult than your usual one. You will not be allowed to choose BlackStar as your meister, but you may choose any other."

Tsubaki considers this for a few seconds. "Can I know the mission first? I think it might help me choose."

Death gestures for her to move over to the mirror. "Can you see those pillars and arches on top of that hill? According to a recent report, there is a gathering of people who are all Kishin eggs who meet there every third Wednesday each month. We want you to kill every last one of them."

Tsubaki sits in consideration a bit longer. "There's three days until Wednesday, right? Do I have to decide now?"

"Of course not! But you must decide by tomorrow night, and get that person to see me before, say, ten in the evening? Then we can make the necessary arrangements."

"Alright. Thank you for your time and helpfulness, Lord Death."

With that, she makes her leave.

(O.O)  
VVV

Tsubaki approaches Soul the next morning. "Hey Soul, I need to ask you about something."

"Oh death, don't say it like that. You just gave me a Maka flashback."

"It's about Maka, actually. I wanted to know if you think I should ask her to be my meister for my special mission, since I can't take BlackStar."

"Hey, as long as she agrees to it. But remember, she can only use you in you twin-bladey mode. With the chain?"

"Right, I had forgotten about that."

Maka comes up behind Soul. "She's not the only one forgetting something, Soul."

"Huh? Oh right. Maka and I are taking a week vacation."

Tsubaki smiles and grabs Maka's hands. "Oh! I knew it!" she then starts jumping up and down, still holding Maka's hands.

BlackStar taps Soul on the shoulder. "What's with her? She's been acting strange ever since she had that meeting with Death."

"I don't know. Maybe she's being expelled?"

"Oh no!" BlackStar jumps onto Tsubaki's back and starts yelling at the top of his lungs. "You're not being expelled, right? You'll still be my partner, right?"

Maka, now that Tsubaki has let go of her hands, walks over to Soul. "What's up with her?"

"She got a special assignment, and I just told BlackStar that she's going to be expelled. She can't take BlackStar, so he wasn't informed."

"Soul, that was a dumb thing to do."

"I don't know, looks pretty funny to me."

Tsubaki succeeds in removing BlackStar from her back, and calming him down to an acceptable level. "BlackStar, I'm just going out on a special assignment. I'll be back, no problems, and probably even stronger. I need to pick a different meister than you, Death's orders."

"Oh. That's great! Make sure you show whatever meister you pick the power of a weapon that has surpassed god! YAHOO!" BlackStar vaults off of the the railing off the edge of the building. There are several screams, but a few seconds later, BlackStar's voice drifts up. "Alright, I'm temporarily without a weapon, cause she's so awesome she gets her own special mission. Who wants to face me?"

Tsubaki blushes, and turns away from Maka and Soul.

In doing so, she ends up face Kid.

"Liz and Patty heard you needed a meister, and said I should ask if you want me to fill that position."

"Sure! Want to try me out right now?"

This statement earned her several weird looks. "You know what I mean!"

"I will attempt to wield you in the most symmetrical manner possible."

Kid and Tsubaki train for a bit, but quickly stop.

"I am sorry, but I don't think I can utilize you to your fullest extent. You'd be better off with someone else." Kid had kept his OCD under control for the most part, but Tsubaki had noticed that any time she turned into a one handed weapon, Kid had slowed down.

"Well, keep your schedule open! I might have to bring you if I can't find anyone else."

"Thank you for offering me that chance, Tsubaki. Now, I must be off."

Tsubaki watches Death the Kid march into the DWMA, wondering who else she should ask.

"Hello there, Tsubaki." The Meister who had been deemed most compatible, Cooper, was right behind her. "Would you like to practice with me? I think we could work together quite admirably."

Tsubaki looks down at the smaller kid, and gives him a warm smile. "Of course!"

After practicing for an hour, and having no difficulty with resonance or weapon handling, they decide to work together in the upcoming mission.

(O.O)  
VVV

Cooper turned out to be a very shy kid, not much taller than BlackStar. He is very skilled with any weapon he picks up, complimenting his ability to attune himself to any other soul. He is an albino, so he has white skin, white hair, and red eyes, which he hides under sunglasses. He normally wears a hoodie, skullcap, and cargo pants, even in the summer.

When he fights, he uses his environment to its maximum potential, pulling any piece of junk he can find in addition to his weapon, Sam.

Sam is a large, confrontational black kid, who turns into a broadsword.

Tsubaki and Cooper make an excellent team. When Death received her choice, he complemented her on her decision.

So the two of them were sent to England, to Stonehenge.

(O.O)  
VVV

"Maka! Duck!"

She barely manages to follow that order of soul's. Looking at where it had hit, she would have been crushed if not for his warning.

Only two more souls... And she wasn't sure that these two souls would work.

She had only been allowed to pick seven souls back at the academy, and was beginning to regret her decision to pick a three star, double witch assignment. They didn't even need any more witch souls. Not that the two of them couldn't handle it, it's just...

"Pum pumpkin Pum pumpkin SMASHING PUMPKIN!"

The male warlock sends a Pumpkin blast right were Maka had been standing a moment ago.

"Do you think these two are cats, just like Blair?" Soul sounds despondent to Maka. She had to agree. She had hoped to return to the DWMA with a death scythe.

"Oh no, we're not cats, silly scythe. We're immortals!" the two witches stop firing pumpkins at Maka and start laughing.

"Seriously, who would do such a bad tactical move?" Maka mutters. She takes a running start and jumps off of the roof to the street below.

The witch and warlock both ceased laughing as soon as Maka got within striking distance. They both fly in different directions, each taunting Maka in a different way.

"Maka, let's do it!"

"Soul resonance!"

The genie hunter tears through the roof of a nearby church and the broom of the witch, sending her plummeting.

"Maybe we should rename the technique 'roof hunter.' We always hit one." soul observes as Maka runs towards the downed witch.

The male warlock swoops around and takes a swipe at their flank, but Maka is fixated in the one witch. Soul attempts to track the warlock's flight, but it's hard when you can't move your own body.

Maka sprints around a corner, an there lay the witch, but not like she had been.

The witch now looks about Soul's age, and is bleeding heavily from a wound caused by a sharp iron rod, still jutting from her stomach. Beside her, another girl is unconscious, and Maka realizes she knows them.

"Soul! These two are... Jacqueline and Kim!"

"You're right. What should we do?"

"First we need to se if she's alright, then we have to contact Lord De-"

A blast a magical energy hits Maka in the back. She drops Soul, who instantly changes into a human again. He moves between her and the warlock, keeping his eyes peeled for any threatening movements.

"Show me who you really are!" Soul growls. "She was a student, but now she works for you, and I intend to get an answer, or pry it out of your corpse!" Big talk coming from a weapon who's incapable of killing anything on his own Soul adds in his head.

"Fine, I don't mind. You see, knowing who I am won't help you," the warlock's form wavers and shifts revealing... Free. "I'm immortal!"

Free looks rather better than he had last time Soul had seen him. He's dressed in a suit, and had managed to remove the ball and chain he had worn the entire time Soul had known him.

"I should have guessed from earlier." Soul mutters.

A small frog is perched on his shoulder, one with little black dots in the corner of its mouth.

"Free, we agreed not to show ourselves!"

The big man turns his head to look at the frog, and in a rather loud whisper replies "Right. Forgot about that."

The frog hops of his shoulder and in a puff of smoke a witch stands in it's place.

Soul blinks. "Wait, didn't you work for medusa?"

Eruka straightens her hat. "We were used by her, we didn't work for her. After she died, Free and I decided to come here. We had hoped not to be bothered by pests like you."

"Eruka, I told you that we shouldn't have taken those two in." Free gently rests a hand on Eruka's shoulder. "I think that's how they found us."

"Actually, according to Maka," Soul quickly glances over his shoulder, Maka is still unconscious. "A man was seen cutting his own hand off without it bleeding."

Eruka looks daggers at Free. Free just looks thoughtful.

Behind Soul, Maka stirs. She struggles to focus on the voices, but her head hurts so bad she can't think straight. Her eyes are messed up to. She thinks that it's Soul standing over her, but she can't be sure.

"Well, I'm going to have a bit of a problem if I attack you two without my meister. How about you two ditch? Like, right now." Soul steps forward just a bit.

"Really. How about you leave? We live here." Free also postures.

"I would, but I don't trust witches."

"And I don't trust DWMA students."

The two glare at each other until Eruka gasps. "Kim!"

Soul breaks eye contact and turns to look at Kim. Impaled, right.

Eruka crouches down beside her, and Free walks up to her, Soul forgotten.

Maka moans as she tries to move, and Soul quickly bends down to scoop her up. She rests her head on his shoulder and mumbles some words of thanks.

Soul turns for one last look at the odd foursome of witches. What he sees almost makes him drop Maka. Kim is sitting up, looking as healthy as ever, no sign of her recent impaling except for a very... _revealing_ hole in the center of her shirt, which she was attempting to hold closed with her hands.

What is it with witches? Why wouldn't they stay dead? Though, Kim had been a friend and a help in the past, but... She's a witch...

Souls head felt like it was about to explode.

"Whatever. I'm leaving, but we'll be back." Soul starts trudging in the direction of his motorcycle.

Free looks up just in time to catch a brick in his face. The assault had come from a human-like figure who has four arms, standing on the opposite side of the Witch group as Soul. He chucks another few bricks at the group hitting Soul on the shoulder and knocking Kim out again.

Free mutters under his breath (he thinks) "Great, just what we need." louder, "Eruka, they're here. Let's go!"

Free scoops up both the unconscious girls, and runs away from the newcomer, heading straight for Soul and Maka.

Soul sidesteps the werewolf, but Eruka grabs his arm and starts hauling him along. Soul attempts to speak, but the witch puts a finger to her lips in a shushing motion.

They run around the city, seemingly at random, Free in the lead. Soul wonders where on earth they think they're going, as he's pretty sure they'd covered the whole city twice. Eventually, Free stands before a door leading into an apartment.

"Quickly, in here!" Eruka urges Soul.

Soul obliges, and they shut the door behind him. "So, what's going on? Why am I here with you two instead of, I don't know, back at the academy?"

Eruka sighs. "That thing was one of the Kishin eggs that keep popping up over this city. They're being augmented somehow, possible by another witch. We've been trying to find out."

"Why? That almost sounds like you guys are good guys when you say it like that."

Free stops inspecting the door and sets the two girls onto the couch gently. "We're trying to turn over a new leaf. Maybe, if we don't hunt regular souls, Death will spare us."

Eruka speaks up next "It's more complicated than that. We're also taking out Kishin eggs, ones not on Death's list. Jackie has become quite powerful in the time she's been with us." She shifts around uncomfortably. "I saved you and her because you were both students at his academy, and letting you die wouldn't make Death see us in a better light, would it?"

"So that's it? We should just forget what you've done?"

"I never killed anyone after I got away from the witch prison. Eruka only half blew up the zombie teacher, and she's pretty controlled by witch standards. Medusa had control over us that kept us doing her bidding."

"Do you think we would've revived the Kishin without her?" Eruka starts rummaging through some drawers, eventually pulling out a new shirt for Kim.

"But you did still revive him."

There is a silence.

Free eventually speaks up. "You can go out there and face it alone if you want. I won't stop you."

Soul pretends to consider it for a moment. "Nah, I can't carry Maka and fight someone his size at the same time." Maka again mumbles something, but Soul doesn't catch it.

"Set her down over there, and we'll get you two a bed for the night. They'll be out in force now."

Soul honestly sees no choice, so he complies.


	4. Chapter 4: The End of Sanity

Tsubaki and Cooper stand in the shadow of the great stone arches. It's the evening of the third Wednesday, and no sign of the witches yet.

Tsubaki had insisted that she don't enter weapon form until combat began, which had turned out to be a wise choice. If she had decided to stay in weapon form, she would have undoubtedly been completely sore from holding in position for the fifteen hours they'd been here.

"Cooper, are you sure we have the right place?" Tsubaki rests her head against one of the stone pillars.

"Death said that this was the place. I'm inclined to trust his judgement." Cooper remains looking straight ahead.

"I'm just concerned that we might be in the wrong place, and then we'll have to come back in a month."

"We're in the right place. I can feel it."

Cooper turns and stretches. Once he opens his eyes, he immediately notices a shadowy form slink out of sight.

"Tsubaki!"

"Right!"

She changes into her kusarigama form, two scythes linked by a chain.

Cooper stands in the center of the large stones, slowly turning around.

Then a witch steps out of the shadows. Then another, and another, and more.

In a few seconds, twenty witches had all appeared, surrounding Cooper and Tsubaki.

(O.O)  
VVV

Maka woke with a jolt. The last thing she remembered was hit from behind, and she had hit her head on something. Although, now that she thinks about it, she did remember being carried. Probably not in the way she had been dreaming about, with that pretty dress, but still.

She looks around. The room is almost pitch black, but she can make out a sleeping form lying next to the door. She had slept near him enough to hear at it was soul.

She moves next to him and shakes his shoulder. "Soul, wake up! I need to know what happened."

Soul grumbles and tries to roll away, slamming his face into the doorframe. He groans and rolls back. "What's the rush? They said that we can't do anything for a few hours."

"Who's they?"

"Right. Unconscious. After you got knocked out, the warlock turned out to that idiot immortal werewolf. They are attempting to get in Death's good graces so that they're spared, and something is hunting them. It would've come after us if we'd hung around, so they led me here. Now I'm waiting for you to wake up and for the stupid Kishin eggs to go away."

"Well, I'm up now. You want to see if they're gone?"

"Sure."

They exit the small room to the smell of delicious food. In the kitchen, Eruka and Free are mixing various items together (Maka was relieved to see that the ingredients didn't seem like brewing components) and Jackie was pulling something out of the oven. Kim is propped up on a couch, with a water bottle on her head. She waves meekly.

"Kim! I'm so glad to see your okay!" Maka rushes over to Kim and gives her a gentle hug. "I was so worried when you ran off, and you gave everyone at the DWMA a big scare!"

"I guess I did leave abruptly. I just panicked, I figured that once they knew I was as good as dead."

"Actually, they want you to use your magic to help stop Kishin eggs. They've been looking all over for you."

"I know. Eruka and Free took us in once I got away from Death City, and have kept us hidden ever since. I guess I should have realized that eventually students would be called in to get me."

"Well, if it's alright with you, we'll take you back with us! Ox has really missed you!" the last sentence was clearly meant to be teasing. Both girls laughed, and some of the tension escaped from the room.

Meanwhile, Soul had decided to scope out the kitchen. The food smells are really getting his stomach growling.

"You want some?" Free half turns front he pot he had been stirring. "It's pretty good."

"What is it?"

"Chicken noodle."

"As long as it isn't made from little children, I think I'll chance it."

"Stay away from the brownies then." Eruka grins over her shoulder. "I think Jackie cut her finger over the batter."

Soul surreptitiously puts the brownie he had snatched back.

Maka enters the kitchen. "Kim would like to have some soup, if it's done."

"Just a few minutes. I need to find the normal salt."

Eruka shifts through a few bottles of oddly colored powders before finally finding table salt. She shakes it a few times over the pot Free is attending to and Free starts pouring out bowls. Maka grabs one and goes to the other room, presumably to give to Kim.

"So, how long until we can leave?" Soul shifts around uncomfortably. He really didn't like the witches, and wanted to get moving.

"It normally takes about ten hours for them to give up. We play lots of card games in the meantime. You wanna join?"

Soul shrugs and pulls up a chair. He sets to his soup as Free starts dealing cards to Eruka, Jackie, and himself. Soul soon starts playing, and time wears late into the night.

(O.O)  
VVV

The witches start chanting all of their different chants, creating a cacophony of mangled words.

Cooper wastes no time, swinging Tsubaki around in a circle, clipping several witches, and interrupting a few chants.

The first witch to finish her chant raises her hands in the air and yanks them down, causing a torrent of water to fall down on top of Cooper and Tsubaki.

Actually, it fell where they were, as Cooper had anticipated the attack and jumped away.

He retaliates against the water witch by wrapping the chain around her neck and pulling until the head literally pops off.

Tsubaki has to stop watching the witches and starts looking at Cooper, who has grown muscles and sharp teeth, now looking nothing like the meek boy she had agreed to go on the mission with. In fact, he looked somewhat like that stupid werewolf they had fought in London. Ha, werewolf in London. But seriously, he is starting to be scary. His expression can only be described as bloodlust.

Cooper had yet to notice Tsubaki had gone silent. He is tearing holes in anything that gets in his way, including the arches and pillars. Tsubaki occasionally changes weapon forms just to see how he reacts, which Cooper tends to just shift his fighting style to match, never missing a beat.

Soon, much to quickly for Tsubaki, Cooper had dispatched three quarters of the witches. The remaining five start snapping their fingers in rhythm. Tsubaki listens closely the witches and hears a small "chi...chi...chi..." coming from each of them.

"Cooper? What are they doing?"

"No clue!" the maniacal voice is filled with glee, and he rotates Tsubaki around so he is holding her in reverse grip. (She's currently a ninja sword.)

The witches finish their chant and fly around, finally stacking one atop the other. In a puff of smoke, only one witch is left behind. One very sexy witch.

Cooper is frozen in place, and Tsubaki notices that some blood had fallen out of his left nostril.

"Cooper! Get your head together!" she screams at him. Then, in a much quieter voice, "Boys!"

Cooper does in fact get his head together, but only in time to dodge the constant attacks. He seems to be putting up a mediocre defense.

The witch snatches up the staff of one of her fallen coven members, and spins in a circle to build up momentum. Cooper blocks with one hand, and pinches his nose with the other.

The combined witch continuously picks up debris and bashes, slashes, and throws it at Cooper. To his credit, he managed to block all of it, but Tsubaki could see the problem. The witch kept flashing him with her ridiculous top, and he had the typical willpower of a man. In other words, none.

Tsubaki decide to take the situation into her own hands.

She suddenly turns into a throwing star and back again to loosen Cooper's grip on her. Then she twists out and turns back into her human form. She swings her hair around and catches it, turning it into a scythe.

Cooper blinks a bit, then grabs a plank and blocks a small rock that was aimed at Tsubaki. "Hey, you got a plan?" he seems back to his normal geeky self.

"Yes. Cover me please."

Cooper starts matching the witch's fighting style, throwing things and occasionally grabbing a projectile out of the air and hurling it right back.

Tsubaki starts edging around the witch, attempting to blindside her with an attack. As soon as she sees an opportunity, Tsubaki twirls and chucks her braid blade at the witch.

Unfortunately, the witch had seen it coming and grabbed a board to block the blade. It wraps around the board and yanks the witch off balance. As the blade wraps around for the last time, the blade arcs around and almost kills the witch. She saves herself by biting down on the blade hard enough to cause Tsubaki to wince. Then she mutters something without letting go of the blade. Bright pink whiskers pop out, and one of them cuts clean through one of the link of Tsubaki's chain. Tsubaki cries out in pain, and tries to jerk her blade away from the witch.

While the witch is occupied, Cooper makes a soaring kick to the blade stuck inside the witch's mouth, shoving it out the other side of her head. The eyes of the witch open wide before crumbling to dust, leaving behind five witch souls.

(O.O)  
VVV

Soul stands up from the table and stretches.

"That was fun. If you guys ever get to come to Death City, stop by. I'd enjoy another few rounds of that."

"No problem!" Eruka looks genuinely pleased. "It's been a while since we had someone new to play against."

"I think that we should be fine leaving now, since it's been almost fifteen hours from when they first saw us." Soul gestures to Maka, and they both grab their stuff. They are just about to open the door when the door slams open of its own accord. Two monstrous beings are on the other side, looking down. Just as suddenly, the door slams shut. Soul looks down, approximately where the monsters had been looking.

"Blair?"

"Huh? Soul!"

The cat springs at him, changing into a human mid flight.

Eruka giggles as the busty cat smothers Soul. Maka pushes her off of Soul, notices his nosebleed, and proceeds to deck him with a book.

After they had all calmed down a bit, soul muttered to himself "Why do I always get hit? It's the bloody cats fault!"

(O.O)  
VVV

"Where are we going, kid?" Patty skips to keep pace with Kid who is striding along towards an abandoned building.

"We are here to find another of Eibon's tools. Dad has entrusted us with finding it, and it should be inside that warehouse."

From his other side, Liz pipes up. "Did he tell us what it was? Hopefully it's more pleasant than those clowns." she shudders slightly.

"No, we have no way to know what to expect. Let's just hope nobody was able to get here before us."

They continue to approach the warehouse, without a single soul in sight.

Once they get to the warehouse, Liz notices something weird. "Hey Kid, why is there smoke coming from the chimneys? Isn't this place supposed to be abandoned?"

Kid looks up and the smokestacks. "You're right. And the chimneys are asymmetrical, too!"

Patty giggles and Liz just sighs.

Soon they actually arrive at the entrance, and the faint sounds of machinery can be heard inside. The entrance is slightly lopsided.

Kid refrains from commenting upon it, and they enter.

Inside, conveyor belts zigzag everywhere. Cranes and buckets travel along the ceiling, carrying various thing to different sections of the warehouse. Right in front of the group, a unguarded checkpoint looms. Kid and Patty walks right past it, but Liz starts to get the creepy feeling again.

She slowly moves around, warily looking around for spooky things. When she is finally satisfied that the area is ghost free for now, she looks back at where Patty and Kid were. They had continued traveling in a straight line, and we're now a hundred or so feet ahead of her.

"Hey! Wait for meeeeeeeee!"

She fails entirely to notice the single eye watching the three of them.

(O.O)  
VVV

"What are you doing here, Blair?" Maka had calmed down somewhat, and after seeing more monsters outside, Soul had rethought his position on going outside.

"I'm being helpful! These witches are trying to redeem themselves, and they're fighting tons of bad guys!"

"Yeah. They're also witches, so Lord Death can exile you for consorting with them. Not that he's ever done that, but even so." Maka says this in the same manner she does when quoting the rule book.

"Aw. These guys are so much more fun than you two have been recently, with all those stupid arguments."

"Hopefully, we've put those past us." Soul steps in between Blair and Maka. "So, you led those 'enhanced' Kishin eggs right here did you?"

Blair hangs her head. "I didn't mean to. They ambushed me two blocks away, and I barely got away as it is. If I had to run for longer, I would be cat snacks!"

Soul sighs and rest his knuckles against his forehead. "They're not going to eat us out, are they?"

Eruka shakes her head sadly.

"Then we have no choice. Is everyone capable of fighting?"

Kim gets up off of the couch. "I'm not sure how much use I'll be, but I don't need to be carried."

Free moves to the window. "There's currently four of them out there. Soul and Maka will take the one with eight eyes, Eruka and Blair will deal with the one who has two sets of legs, and I'll take care of the oversize brute. Kim, if you can, take the idiot who hit you with a brick. He has four arms. If you need help, run and one of us will get it when we finish with our foes."

There is a chorus of "Got it!" and "Alright!"

Soul turns to Blair. "So the reason these two could use your pumpkin magic is...?"

"Oh! That's simple. I just used it in a previous encounter, and Free used his spatial magic on it to preserve it somewhere else until he needed it!"

Soul shakes his head and leaps into Maka's hands as a scythe.

(O.O)  
VVV

Tsubaki shudders as she eats the last witch soul. She never did get the hang of the actual soul eating part, and the souls taste disgusting. She wonders how Soul likes them.

"Excellent, now we can go back to the DWMA." Cooper has stuffed his backpack with everything he could find that had belonged to the witches. Everything from books and journals to jars of weird things had made it into the pack.

"Yes, we should get going. But first, I have a few questions." Tsubaki crosses her arms.

Cooper's eyes first get suspicious, but they widen right back up when Tsubaki crosses her arms. His nose starts dripping again.

"What are you? You aren't human. At least, not strictly human. You changed when we were fighting."

"Oh, you noticed that. Sorry. That's why I don't have a partner, not a steady one. You see, I'm a werewolf. We're all adaptable to many wavelengths. I can't keep a partner because they all invariably find out during combat, and freak out at me." his voice is slightly off because he is pinching his nose shut. Tsubaki uncrossed her arms and he relaxes a bit.

"Oh. Um..." Tsubaki stretches her mind for words. "I met another werewolf once. He was also immortal, and a warlock. Are you immortal?"

"I wish. That guy sounds like a pain in the butt."

"He was. I don't know where he is now. There's just too much to keep track of nowadays."

"Pretty much."

"Does anyone else at the academy know about you? Lord Death maybe? The teachers?"

"No, and I managed to secure the silence of all my weapon partners up to this point. Most of them would agree to anything I said just to get away from me."

"That's so sad. Do you want me to keep quiet about it as well?"

"I guess it's up to you. So far, you're the only one who's heard me out. I would appreciate it if we stayed friends though."

"Of course! There's no question about it."

He smiles and turns down the path that heads for the village, and their ride home.

(O.O)  
VVV

Patty skips down a hall, two steps ahead of Kid. She is humming a tune, one Kid was unfamiliar with. Liz knew it as "Twinkle twinkle little star," and she had a hard time attempting to block the song out of her head.

The factory still seems empty, with the controls working themselves.

"Kid, where are we going? There isn't anything here but creepiness. I want to go home." Liz is hunched over and looking around warily.

"We have no choice. We have to find the source of the strange behavior and kill it if it's going to be a problem."

Patty spins around and addresses Kid. "What are these machines making, anyway? It looks like buckets with stuff on the outside."

Kid looks thoughtful for a minute, then grabs a bucket off of the conveyer belt. "It appears to be a way of holding a soul, similar to the graves in my father's room. Maybe these are supposed to be used to transport souls from one place to another."

"TELEPORTERS?!" Patty's jaw would've hit the floor if it hadn't been attached by a few ligaments.

"No, Patty. Like carrying a bucket of water, but instead of water, it holds a soul."

Patty looks confused. "I didn't know souls were the same as water. Does that mean that Kishin eggs are water balloons?"

Kid and Liz just stare at her. Kid leans over to whisper to Liz. "I though she was older than ten."

Liz whispers back. "Yeah, she is. In case you haven't noticed, she has gone through puberty already. I think she's closer to fourteen now. I can't remember what day was her birthday though."

"I think the DWMA need basic logic courses, if only for her sake."

"Agreed."

"What are you two whispering about? We have a factory to search!"

Kid puts the bucket back on the conveyer belt. They head deeper into the factory until the find a small office in the center of the building. Kid Pushs the door and it easily opens. Inside is a very disturbing sight.

"Hey! It's that stupid boat guy!" Patty waves at him. "Hi stupid boat guy!"

"What do you three want? Are you going to cut my head in half again?"

"No, we just came to find something. Speaking of your head, where is the other half of it?"

"Wouldn't you like to know!"

"He probably has it overseeing some equipment, or guarding the door." Kid seems to have lost all interest in the owner of the Nidhogg. "Liz, Patty, let's go. We have something to get."

"Right!"

Kid starts out the door, but the man with half a face leaps out of his chair and grabs him by the back of his shirt collar. "Leaving so soon?"

Patty grabs Liz's hand and Liz transforms into the customary pistol. Patty does a pirouette before hitting the half face with a blast of soul energy.

He lets go of Kid, and Kid grabs the pistol from Patty. Patty transforms into the twin of her sister and Kid gets ready to battle.

(O.O)  
VVV

BlackStar is getting annoyed.

His partner is off on a mission without him, the rest of his team is on missions without him, and he's not allowed to solo missions. Stupid buddy system.

Instead, he decided to find out what the best solo fighter besides himself in the school is.

With the help of professor Stein (who had been oddly helpful) BlackStar managed to get quite a few meisters and weapons competing.

"Alright everybody! Today's the day we find out who really is the best!" BlackStar looks down at his script. Stein had told him that if he went off on any tangents, he would be

labeled the worst student ever. BlackStar couldn't let that happen. "Professor Stein set up the matches, so it should be roughly fair." He looks up. "As long as the professor isn't cheating." He goes back to the script. "The tournament will last three days, with the pre-lim-in-ary rounds on the first day. Then in the next day the sixteen students that won yesterday will compete and go down to four." He was horribly botching the script, but how did Stein think he could figure out those big words? Fortunately, BlackStar had understood what was going on, and could figure out what the hell Stein had written. "The third day, we have the last three rounds, first the one with four people, then the one to decide the winner. Let's get started!"

He hops off the podium as the crowd laughs and applauds. BlackStar had quite a reputation after Death and Death the Kid had said he was instrumental in taking out the Kishin. The ceremony had been something to see. Of course, if BlackStar had behaved, maybe the-

Oh, look. BlackStar is in the first match.

He puts his hands in his pockets as his first opponent steps up. Harvar, a lightning staff that BlackStar vaguely remembered being on a boat with. Something about a small blue box, maybe.

Anyhow, he's going down. BlackStar dodges the larger boy's initial attack with a small hop to the side, then retaliates by throwing a spinning rear kick at the boy's face. He barely manages to dodge it, and he disengages by taking a few steps back.

BlackStar sees an opening and takes it, diving at the older boy head first. The headbutt to the stomach knocks Harvar over and out of the ring, giving the match to BlackStar.

"Were you even trying?" BlackStar leans over the boy and sticks his hand out to pull Harvar up.

"Jeez. You'd think I was the one with my hands in my pockets." Harvar grumbles.

Another few matches go past, BlackStar staring off into space. He hates to admit it, but it's hard to show off nowadays. Tsubaki always made him feel better about it whenever she was around, but someday she'll be leaving with a different meister. Possibly one who hadn't surpassed god. BlackStar resolves to make sure Tsubaki only gets the best meister, and anyone below him could just go die.

Surprisingly soon, it was BlackStar's turn again. He had managed to inspire a lot of hands-in-pockets fighters who invariably were knocked out in short order.

"Alright! Who's next?"


	5. Chapter 5: Kissing Problems

Let's do this!"

Soul slams his hands down onto the keys of his piano. Instantly, everyone tenses. They burst out the door as a group, Maka in the lead. Each meister and witch finds their target and starts after them.

Maka immediately attempts to slice the abomination in half, but it deflects the strike with a small dagger it had been carrying. It's eyes stray around, watching all of the battles, not just its own. Two eyes remain fixed on Maka.

Meanwhile, Blair and Eruka tackle their foe with attacks timed to utterly disorient the poor target. For its part, the creature managed to stay upright, but only because it had a lot more feet than normal.

Blair seems to be enjoying herself, Eruka thinks to herself. She had always been a weaker witch, but she'll be eaten if she is worse than a _cat_. Eruka calls upon her tadpole bombs, and litters them around. It's only a matter of time before the lumbering quadruped steps on one, blowing its leg clean off. The creature screams in pain, flailing wildly. One of its arms smacks Blair against a wall, and she falls unconscious, turning back into a cat.

Free had quickly dispatched his foe. He literally grabbed the giant's head and smooshed it like a grape. He then went over to help a struggling Kim, who looks like she's about to fall over.

Jackie was having a hard time maneuvering with her rider only half conscious. It didn't help that the four arms of their particular foe had really long reach, and kept groping for and snagging the shaft of metal that Kim held on to. All it would take was one small miscalculation on Jackie's part to send her rider to her peril.

Such a miscalculation occurs right before Free can reach them. Jackie swerves just a little to hard, Kim loses consciousness and topples overboard.

Fortunately, Free caught her. Maka could have sworn she heard him mutter "This is why we shouldn't bring in strays."

Soul taps fully into the black blood. The stuff starts pooling around his feet. He keeps one eye watching it and the other on his playing. "Maka, tell everyone that I'm going to have to stop sooner rather than later."

"Why's that?"

"Let's just say my piano sprung a leak."

"Huh?"

"Just tell them, Okay?"

"Sure." audibly, Maka repeats what Soul said. While she turned to speak, the monster before her decided to start mashing its hands together. When it draws them apart, fibrous web is formed.

"Too loud, shut up." the thing hisses at her, drawing her attention back to the fight.

The creature shoves the webs over her mouth making it hard for her to breathe. She swings Soul in a wide arc, catching the monster between her and the blade. Then she jumps to about chest height on the monster and kicks with both feet as hard as she can. The monster looks down with all eight eyes as its torso slowly falls off the legs it had been standing on. The top half barely hit the ground before it dissipated, and Maka was off to help Free and Jackie. But first, she uses Soul to cut a slit in the web, which was deeply disturbing to both of them.

Eruka was steadily being driven backwards by her opponent, to the point where she was doing all she could not to slaughtered. The beast had adapted remarkably well to only using three legs and was using its fourth leg as a flair.

Eruka was having a hard time getting over the fact it had ripped its own leg of to use as a weapon. Then again, these mutant Kishin eggs were full of surprises.

"Ribbit ribbit ribbit tadpole bomb!" with the last words, she chucks a black sphere at the centaur's face. The sphere explodes right where it was intended to, leaving no trace of a head.

She starts to edge around the corpse when it inexplicably stands back up and swings its leg at her once again.

Free gently sets Kim down on the pavement. Maka is distracting the monster quite well. Jackie swoops down and transforms back into a human, catching the rod as it popped off. "Is she okay?"

"She's fine. You get her away from here, go somewhere safe. You could go to-"

"THE DWMA!" Maka shouts over to them. "HEAD TO THE DWMA!"

Free looks perplexed. "Well, it's a better idea than the one I had. I'm not an ideas man, you know."

Jackie looks at him askance. "Didn't you come up with the plan?"

"Yeah. The plan was charge right in, remember?" Free smiles. "I don't do complicated."

Jackie shakes her head and transforms. Free sticks the rod in (That's what she said) and sets Kim on it in such a way that she wouldn't fall off easily.

As they soar off, supposedly towards the academy, Free turns his attention back the the fights at hand. Maka definitely has her opponent outmatched, but Eruka was having trouble defeating hers. Say, didn't it used to have four legs, not two, and a head? It also seems to be missing an arm.

Eruka was desperately trying to hold back tears. No matter how much she tore or exploded off the thing, it still keeps coming. And coming.

Eruka bounces of the wall behind her, realizing that she is trapped. "Help! Free!"

All of a sudden, the creature falls over, unable to support itself. Behind it stands Free, holding a pinkish red orb in his bloody right hand.

"You called?"

Eruka manages to squeak out a laugh.

Maka rounds the corner, with Soul holding two of his namesake.

"Do you guys mind if I eat these?" Soul gestures to the Kishin eggs. Free shrugs, and Eruka just blinks at him.

"See? I told you they wouldn't care!" Maka gently slaps Soul on the back of the head.

"It never hurts to ask, especially since that time I took you shampoo and-"

Maka tackles Soul and starts punching him in the side.

Free turns to Eruka. "Where's Blair? She seems to have disappeared."

"Oh no! She got knocked out earlier, and I couldn't check on her. Let's find her quick!"

They find Blair where she had been knocked out. Eruka picks her up and starts stroking her fur absentmindedly. "Now they know where we live. What are we going to do, Free?"

Maka answers the question, looking up from beating her victim senseless. "You two wanted to get into Lord Death's good graces right? Then why don't you come back with me? I'll do my best to make sure you two are pardoned."

Free looks at Eruka. He's had quite enough decision making today.

"I don't know. This could be a trap. Death hates witches."

Maka snorts. "We currently have two witches, if you include Kim, in death city. Along with a boy who had the demonsword melted into his blood. And a zombie as a teacher. If you think that death isn't changing his policies, you haven't been paying any attention."

Eruka sighs. "Sure, we'll go. But if Death tries to kill us, we are out of there, and I'm making no promises about the safety of brats that get in our way."

Maka supposes that this is the best they'll get and drops the subject.

"We're gonna need to pack. If those guys come back, shout so we can get out as fast as we can."

As they walk away, Maka realizes that not only is she still straddling Soul, but he hadn't tried to escape. "Soul? Are you alright?" receiving no answer, she proceeds to check his pulse, which is erratic. She then starts pumping his his chest, something she'd read in a book somewhere. After thirty seconds (Or was it supposed to be twenty?) she starts to move onto the next part. Of course, this would be a great time for Soul to wake up so she wouldn't have to put her mouth on his, but he was being uncooperative in that respect. She braces herself and leans down. She connects, and starts blowing air into his lungs. Soul starts to stir, and she leans back.

Or, she would have leaned back, but there was really sticky web still attached to her face. And now Souls face. Glueing them together in a kiss.

Soul wakes up fully and gives Maka a weird look.

She just glares back at him.

Soul tries to speak, but having your lips glued to someone else's hinders that quite a bit.

Maka's soul perceptibly starts reaching for his, and Soul enters soul resonance for what was probably going to be the oddest conversation he'd ever had. Even odder than the shampoo conversation.

"Soul! This is your fault!" Maka almost attacks him with her mental voice.

"My fault? Last I knew, you were beating me unconscious."

"Yeah! You passed out, and you heart got all erratic, so I tried this thing that was supposed to help. PCR, or something. Unfortunately, one of the things you have to do is make sure the victim can breathe, which involves breathing air into them. I attempted that, and you woke up. This stupid web stuck to you."

"What do you want me to do? Cut both of our faces off?" He turns his arm into a scythe.

"No, just think of something to get this stuff off. Preferably fifteen seconds ago."

Just then they both feel some of the treads break. They separate enough to speak normally, but their cheeks are still inseparable.

"Seems like the strands are decomposing." Maka notes. "It's been, fifteen minutes? No, more like ten."

"Can't do it quick enough."

"Agreed."

They sit there, slowly drifting apart as threads break.

"You know, Maka, this is my best case ever for no reading so many books."

"Just shut up. I was trying to save your life."

"you knocked me unconscious. And you ended up glued to my lips. How was that, by the way?"

"Do you have a death wish today?"

"Nope. A death scythe wish, maybe."

"Where are those souls anyway?" Maka moves her head as much as she can to look for the faintly glowing orbs. "I can't see them."

"That's because I'm holding them. Barely."

Suddenly, a large chunk of web breaks and the two fall over in opposite directions from each other. Soul loses his grip on one and it floats up a bit away from his grasp. Maka leaps up and snatches it before it can drift to far.

"Nice catch. Hand it here." Soul gulps down the soul in his hand and hold his other hand out the receive the one Maka holds. She ceremoniously hands it to him, but the effect she was going for was messed up by soul noisily swallowing the orb.

As soon as it hit his stomach, his eyes grow wide and he falls over. Maka rushes to his side and pulls him upright. She notices that he's shuddering slightly. And what was happening to his-

Free and Eruka leave the building with a bag each. They move over to Maka and Soul.

"What happened to him? More of those creeps?"

"No, he just ate the souls we got, and he fell over and started shaking." In fact, his shaking was growing worse. Just before he started vibrating like Crona during soul resonance, he stopped, sighed, and opened his eyes.

"That was weird. Anyone else see the lightshow?"

(O.O)  
VVV

Kid dodges yet another vat full of molten metal and fires up at where it had fallen from. The half man laughs down at them, adding a taunt for good measure. "So, how's that Kishin of yours? He still asleep in his own skin?"

"What rock have you been under? He was killed for good less than a year ago."

"Oh good. Now nobody opposes my master!"

"And who is that?" Kid jumps straight up to dodge an assortment of bucket lids that had suddenly flown off of a conveyor belt.

"Like I would tell you that! Imagine, me telling the secret. She'd kill me!"

Kid gives a small half smile. "So it's a she then. Thank you for your cooperation."

There is a howl of frustration from the other entity. "Just shut up! And die! Shut up and die! I need these soul containers, or else I'll never win her favor!"

"At this rate, you won't live long enough to see her again. How about we make a deal." Another wave of lids comes followed by a shower of more molten metal.

"I make no deals. Nothing matters but her!"

"Suit yourself. Liz, Patty, soul resonance!"

"Yeah!"

Kid watches his soul explode outwards and surround the three of them. Patty and Liz start giving status reports on the wavelength charge, but he barely listens. He had noticed the "owner" and he hadn't seemed at all worried.

"Hey kid, shouldn't he be, I don't know, running away?" Liz snarks thought their mental connection.

"How do I know? Maybe he thinks I'm bluffing."

"All charged and ready to fire!" Patty interjects.

"Alright, you boat, factory, abomination thing. It's time for you to die." Kid carefully aims the twin cannons and fires directly at the form in front of him.

For a few seconds, all that can be seen is smoke with the occasional skull pattern in it. Once it clears, the entity is gone and the factory slowly grinds to a halt.

"That was slightly to easy." Kid remains wary. "Keep a lookout for any stray body parts that still move."

Liz is literally shaking, while still being in pistol form. Kid barely registers this fact.

As the machinery finally stops and an eerie quiet settles, a faint laugh can be heard way off in the distance. Kid immediately turns and chases after the sound. Soon, the laughter can be heard coming from every direction.

"I think we may have a problem." Kid calmly stops where he stands. " Liz, Patty, we're going to have to do what we did against the Kishin."

"Kid, last time we did that, you had to die to use that." Liz begins.

"I don't think that it's a good idea for you to kill yourself." Patty finishes.

"I realize this, yet I think it's time to thoroughly destroy this place. Are you willing to try?"

"Duh."

"Sure. Just don't expect us to carry your corpse home with us."

Kid closes his eyes to concentrate. He thinks back to the feeling, the essence of that attack, what had fueled it to become so powerful. He immerses himself into the past.

Liz and Patty both notice that Kid's power is growing exponentially. His eyes start to get a faint blue glow that gets brighter by the second. The darkness seems to close in around them, and Liz starts to vibrate again. Not that kid was even remotely able to tell, immersed in his thoughts as he was.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Kid's Sanzu Lines begin to connect.

(O.O)  
VVV

Death himself had come to supervise the second days events. Naturally, he rooted for whoever was fighting, no matter who they were.

BlackStar easily dispatches his first opponent under the watchful gaze Death bestows upon him. As far as BlackStar was concerned, Death should have a mirror attached to BlackStar just so he can watch the latter's exploits.

BlackStar walks off the mats and into someone, and he stumbles back. "Og, uh, sorry, didn't see you there. Must've taken a harder blow than I- TSUBAKI!"

BlackStar wraps Tsubaki into a hug so tight she transforms into a katana just to get some air. BlackStar just brandishes the now sword best friend and runs back into the arena.

"Look! Taubaki's back! Now we're an unbeatable team once again!" he turns around and struts off as Tsubaki gently apologizes to the crowd.

If BlackStar doesn't stop all of this complementing of her, she'll need to have a serious talk with him. He's starting to sound like a starstruck, clingy boyfriend.

Back at the arena, two opponents fight. Death watches them both.

The two are actually normally a team, a weapon and a meister. Death had warned them both that they had better be able to resonate after this battle, or else he'd disqualify them both.

They had cheerfully accepted and proceeded to beat the ever loving crap out of each other.

It was great entertainment, but Death suddenly realized he was drowsy. Odd, because shinigami don't sleep.

Before anyone could notice or react, Death topples over the side of the balcony into the pit.

After the initial screaming and scrambling for teachers, Sid and Spirit examine Death and clear a perimeter respectively. Sid notices something disturbing.

"Hey, Deathscythe. Do you remember this crack in Lord Death's mask...?"

(O.O)  
VVV

The second sanzu line connected, and Kid props the cannons on either side of his body, pointed in different directions. He had roughly calculated the best positions to fire to do the most damage, and he had acted accordingly.

Kid was feeling really odd, feeling almost to powerful, like he had just eaten a witch's soul. That was an experience he didn't want to repeat. It had ruined the symmetry of father's office for a week while repairs were made.

"Kid, we are ready to fire." Liz informs.

Kid barely notices. The power flowing through his form could barely be controlled and required all of his concentration.

The third Sanzu line connects.

Almost not moving his lips, he whispers "Fire."

The twin cannons roar, firing in different directions. Around them, Liz and Patty see the warehouse ripped apart, whole sections collapsing in a cascade event.

The man in front of them (Liz new he had a name, but what was it? Flying German, or something) was correspondingly shredding with the warehouse. His left arm was destroyed first, then his left leg, continuing around counterclockwise. His head is the last part to go, Bursting as the roof collapses behind them.

The torso remains, but it and the factory are completely inactive. Kid rocks back and forth a few times before toppling face first into a pile of boards. Liz and Patty immediately transform to pick him up.

Kid is largely unresponsive, but he seems to be alright. Liz is the first to notice that the lowest Sanzu line is still connected.

In a rare moment of seriousness, Patty says, "We need to get him to Lord Death."

(O.O)  
VVV

Chrona sits in his cell listening to the person in the cell beside him. The prisoner is muttering something unintelligible, but occasionally, Chrona can hear something about a flower.

Maka hadn't been available recently so Chrona had spent most of the last two weeks with Marie. She's a very kind lady. She'd been teaching him how to act when dining at a restaurant, and they'd both been to several different, really nice restaurants recently.

Chrona sighs and hugs his pillow tighter. For some reason, they refused to let him live with Marie until Professor Stein did... something. Chrona wasn't told what it was. It couldn't be a special assignment, as Stein still taught classes. In fact, Stein seemed under less stress now then he had ever before.

The howling from the next cell over grows in volume, and Chrona catches a single word out of the mutterings.

"Huh? Tsubaki? He couldn't mean-"

The door opens, and Chrona's best (maybe only) friend walks in. "Hey Chrona, long time no see!"

"Maka!" he rolls off the bed and sets the pillow back where it's supposed to go. "Where have you been the last two weeks?"

Maka tilts her head. "Oh! I thought I told you. Soul and I went off on vacation to get the remaining souls we needed to turn Soul into a Deathscythe."

"Did you get enough?"

"Yep! Wanna see?" Chrona nods, and Maka turns around. "C'mon Soul, it'll be the last time today."

From out of sight, Soul growls back at her. "It's almost midnight. Of course it'll be the last time today, seeing as its almost tomorrow." He does, however, step into the cell.

Chrona blinks. Soul looks very different, but he cant immediately place it.

Maka grabs Soul's hand. He begrudgingly starts to transform into his new Deathscythe form.

Once again, Chrona gets the feeling that something is different, but can't quite place it. Maybe that fringe on the back of the handle, that seems different.

Maka beams at Chrona, and Chrona realizes that she's probably asking for a complement. Marie had helped him with those about a month ago.

"Yeah, um, good job?"

"Thanks!" Maka gives a few swipes with Soul, the scythe barely making a sound as it cleaves the air.

"Can you not, swing that, that close to me?" Chrona had backed into the corner.

"Oh! Sorry." She stops, and Soul transforms out of her grasp. He takes a glance at his beaten watch and grimaces as it gives a faint beep. Chrona supposes it must be midnight. Then Chrona notices what is different with Soul.

"Your hair!"

"Death, stop rubbing it in. They're worse than Kid's lines, no amount of dye can fix it."

"Sorry. I just couldn't figure out why you looked so different, then I figured it out and then-"

"Don't worry Chrona. Everything's fine. He'll get over those after a while." Maka walks up to him and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Chrona haves her a wan smile, then yawns. "Sorry, I'm just tired. Marie has been giving me lessons in social etiquette, and some of them a tiring."

"We'll go then. See you at lunch!"

The meister and weapon pair exit the cell, locking it behind them.

"You know, Soul, those black tips in your hair are actually pretty cool."

Soul looks at a mirror on the wall. "I don't like them. White is more my color."

"Not anymore!"


	6. Chapter 6: Fangirls & Scythes

"Kid's been injured?" The next morning, Maka, Soul, BlackStar, Tsubaki and the Thompson sisters sit at a table in the lunch hall.

Liz nods. "He used that technique he used against the Kishin, and passed out when he finished."

Patty chimes up, not her usual peppy self. "He's been in the medical room since yesterday. Nobody can figure out why he's not responding, or why his sanzu line is still connected."

Soul blinks. "What's a Stanza line?"

Liz closes her eyes and repeats what Kid had told her when she questioned him about it father they fought the Kishin. "It's the stripes on his head. They're kind of indicators of how powerful he is. They stretch around his head when he draws in a lot of power."

"And now his won't go away." Patty smashes her potato with a fork. "I just want him to wake up."

"So, did we trade hair?" Soul looks a little wild eyed, at least to Liz. "I do not want to have more black creep into my hair if I can help it."

"I don't think that it's possible for the two to be connected unless you're also one of Death's sons." Maka elbows Soul in the ribs, visibly teasing him.

Only Tsubaki noticed the odd looks on the Thompson sister's faces.

"Hey, if I didn't know my own two parents, I'd say you were right." Soul scratches his head. "Not that I really know them that well."

Tsubaki shifts her attention to Soul. "Really? Why not?"

"Oh, they were always busy. Concert this, recital that." Soul leans back and sets his shoes on the table. Maka comes very close to decking him with a book, but decides better of it.

"Concert...? Did your parents play music too?" Tsubaki tilts her head into an inquisitive pose.

Soul opens one eye. "Yeah. And my grandma, brother, and every cousin I know. You probably heard of at least one of them."

Tsubaki stares down at her half finished meal, trying to think if she'd ever heard of a musician with the last name of "Eater."

Maka leans over to Tsubaki. "His family actually has the surname 'Evans' but Soul hates the name."

Tsubaki blushes. She had recently bought a record by Evan's orchestra, and had no idea that Soul was related. "So, are any of your family also weapons?"

"Nah. It was quite surprising when I transformed the first time. Nobody ever though that their no-good son would ever do something so scandalous as turn out to be a weapon." his voice was layered in so much sarcasm, Tsubaki had to take a second to find out what he actually meant.

"Oh. Your family wasn't supportive?"

Soul closes his eye again and pretends not to hear. Maka grins apologetically at Tsubaki. "It took me three years to find that much out about his family. You're lucky he didn't immediately go for your throat."

Tsubaki smiles back at Maka. "I guess so. Hey, anyone want to go visit kid?"

Soul perks up now that his family is no longer the subject of conversation. "Sure!"

Maka grabs his sleeve to stop him from moving. "Hey Soul, remember that thing that we're supposed to do?"

"Uh, no."

"Just go on ahead. We have something to do before the Ball tonight."

Soul's right eye spontaneously begins to twitch. Tsubaki rightly guess that he had just remembered.

The rest of the group leaves, with Maka holding a slightly whimpering Soul.

(O.O)  
VVV

Several hours later, Death glides to the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome! Welcome! Today we have a very special announcement to make. We have a new Deathscythe!"

Death ends his "speech" with a bow and much cheering from the audience.

Death slides away from the center of the closed curtains and signals Sid to draw them up. Behind the curtains, Maka and Soul stand, dressed in their very finest. The applause redoubles, and several shouts and whistles can be partially heard over the thunderous clapping. Also, one extremely loud "YAHOO!"

Soul just takes it in stride, pulling his hand out of his pocket long enouggh to wave at the audience. Maka is struggling with all the attention on her, but she still manages to smile and wave, if a little stiffly. Death nods to Sid once more. Sid moves over to a record player, and starts a somber piece of music.

Soul and Maka had been practicing dancing, so Soul's feet would survive the night. They had been told that Deathscythes had always lead the dance and since no one had made Deathscythe for over five years now, they were expected to make this night one to remember.

Soul and Maka slowly rotate around, music so loud that it drowned everything else out. Maka closes her eyes and pretends that she and Soul were the only ones in the room. Nobody watching.

The song slowly fades out, and the clapping begins again, with a lot more catcalls this time. Maka and Soul take their bows and descend off the stage to join the party.

For the rest of the night, people came up to congratulate them. They barely could take a bite of their food for thanking so many people.

During a rare lull, Soul leans into Maka. "We're getting more attention then some people on their wedding day." Maka almost choked on her food trying not to laugh.

Surprisingly, Eruka and Free had been allowed to attend. They both kept on best behavior, until Free had tried to chill his drink and had accidentally speared himself. A few students fled after watching Free just shrug it off like it was nothing.

At the end of the night, Death gets back up on stage. "Now, if he'd be so kind, I've been told Soul is quite the musician, and I'm sure we would all like to hear him play."

Soul's smile glazes over a bit, but he moves down to the piano nonetheless. Before he even opens the piano, he gestures for Maka to join him. Maka, confused, complies.

"Maka, resonate with me, alright?"

"Sure, why not."

They join souls, and Soul starts playing.

The people closest notice it first. The music has a powerful undercurrent, one that teased the soul out into the open and let it mingle with everyone else's. Not literally, but people felt that way. As more and more souls connect to Soul's piano playing, the energy in the room grows. Soon, every single person is connected through a massive soul resonance. Drawing upon all the power he contains as a Deathscythe, Soul plays his heart out, filling ever person and entity present with two very important emotions: Hope and Bravery.

When he stops playing, the entire room settles down, and most of the crowd is left wondering what exactly had just happened. They had heard Maka and her team was great with team resonance, but did Soul just resonate with everyone in the room?

Outside of their team, only teachers and Death knew what happened.

Death sits in his chair, contemplating. If this was how well he could resonate with his partner, what would he be able to do if he was wielded be Death?

"Soul, can I talk to you for a minute?" Death's voice cut through the peace like a lance.

Soul closes the piano and starts towards Death. Maka begins to follow, but Soul shakes his head at her. The entire hall watches as Soul reaches Death and listens to the whispered words. Soul nods and turns into his Deathscythe form, landing in the giant hands of Death. As soon as the gloves close around the handle, Soul's entire form starts leaking energy with small bursts of electricity discharging into Death, not that he seemed to mind.

Death then drops the scythe on his feet and clears his throat. "As it is well past everyone's bedtimes, I will have to call this party to a close. Please get your sleep, everyone, since tomorrow is going to be extremely exciting."

The crowd slowly disperses, and the hall slowly becomes quiet once more.

(O.O)  
VVV

"Did you feel that? I can't believe he can do that!"

"That's nothing! He was so charged when Death held him that Death had to let go!"

"That's not what happened."

"Yeah, it is. Ask anyone!"

Soul looks glumly at his locker. As expected, crammed full of letters. The other students seemed to be to busy talking about him to notice he was standing right there, so he had opened a few and read them.

"Are the kids in this school retarded?" he muses out loud. "I trained this whole time with Maka. Why would I switch partners?"

Maka also found her locker stuffed with mail, and she stuffed as much of it into her backpack as she could before trying to find Soul.

Unfortunately for her, several other girls were also waiting for Soul, and seemed content to follow her around until Maka found him.

That was going to get annoying very quickly.

She want to try to evade them, maybe sprint around corners until she had lost them, but it would only help if she had a specific destination in mind. Soul was nowhere to be found.

She turned another corner, arriving at the balcony. Below her line of sight from the doorway, she could hear a commotion. Se moved to the balcony, all thoughts of her pursues forgotten.

It was a sight to behold. Soul was standing in the center of a ring of people, three quarters of which are on their sides having been knocked down. Soul has a slasher smile on his face, and holds his left leg in the air, blade poking out. The stance reminded Maka of Giriko, and maybe even the smile too.

As impulsive as ever, she leaps down to confront her teammate.

Soul immediately whirls around trying to cut her in half, but Maka ducks and sweeps his right foot out from under him. He upends with a surprised look on his his face.

"Ow! Hey, why did you do that?"

"What are you doing? I can't believe you would attack all of these people!"

"Maka, their displays of affection are worse than Blair's. It was fight them off or be mobbed."

"Really." Maka looks sceptical.

"Why would I risk your wrath by doing something this stupid without reason? I may have enjoyed it more than I should have, but it was originally self defense!" Soul flops into a sitting position.

A few of the crowd around them (Maka notices that it was almost exclusively girls) had started to creep closer. One of the more ambitious girls tries to grab a chunk of his hair, presumably to drag him off with.

Maka sees red.

She grabs Soul's hand, and he transforms, as much to escape the hair grab as anything else. They stand in a now much smaller circle of people, who all look remarkably jealous that Soul still fought with his partner, rather than whoever was having the thought at that particular instance.

Inwardly, Maka prepares a means of escape, calculating where the weak points in this mob were.

On the outside, she prepares for a large swing, daring the crowd to attack. Soul prepares his piano.

"Hey Maka, I want to try something with soul resonance, and as long as we're not actually attempting to kill them, they should all be fine." Inside his soul room, Soul always felt like he was very small, and he always shouted upwards to communicate with Maka, though that was probably unnecessary. The curtains covering the ceiling gently sway as she wordlessly starts to reach for his soul. He grins.

The crowd charges almost as one, Maka having not figured out a plan of action just stood there. The other girls are Bering down at her, and she couldn't think of anything to do but jump at the last second. Soul reached soul resonance with her, and suddenly, every single person inside Death city fell unconscious all at once.

Soul was far from the first to wake up, but the majority of the girls who he had intended to knock out we're still out.

Practically alone, he grins. He had no idea just how much power he had. He should probably save that technique for extremely desperate situations. He looks out over the city, seeing people lying down all along the roads. Idly, he wondered exactly how many people he had knocked out.

He turns to his partner on the ground and reached down to shake her awake. Before he reached her, however, something came around from the side which he had barely sensed in time to dodge. The thing was so fast, he hadn't even gotten a glimpse of it. He looked over at Maka, and he is alarmed to note that her eyes are wide open, with her soul perception still active. soul tentitavly reaches back towards his partner, but this time he had his blade ready. Once again, something came at him, but this time he blocked it.

Soul couldn't believe his eyes.

It was a scythe blade, much like Spirit's blades, but this one originated from her!

Maka was a weapon too? Soul grimaces. She could probably become one of the self made Deathscythes, if she wanted.

Soul didn't let himself think it, but he knew that he had lost a special place in their partnership. She no longer needed him, not really.

A second blade snaps Soul out of his thoughts. Maka was fighting him for some reason, using weapon power Soul never knew she had.

"Maka! Snap out of it! I'm you weapon partner, remember?" Bad choice of words, he thought. She might already be trying to get rid of him.

Maka shows no signs of hearing his voice. She wouldn't even move her eyes.

More and more blades pop out from her body, all attempting to pin and skewer him with deadly speed. For the first time in his life, Soul moves so fast that anyone awake to watch would see nothing but a blur. There was exactly one such spectator, the one who couldn't be knocked out using soul wavelength. One who never slept.

Death watched with curiosity as the two partners both try to pin down the other.

The battle, if you could call it that, took about five minutes, a hellishly long time during combat, but it ended quite suddenly.

Soul almost made it to Maka before she got him.

Soul lies on top of Maka, several of her blades piercing his body. He still seemed to be alive, as he was whispering something into the girls ear. Getting no reaction, he closes his eyes.

Soul coughs up a puddle of blood. If he was going to die here, he might as well.

"I wish we could have been more than friends, Maka." he murmurs, heard by nobody.

Well, at least not immediately.

Maka slowly comes to her senses, something that Soul had said had drawn her out of her protective shell. As soon as she opens her eyes, she sees blades, looking like her father's poking out of Soul's back.

"Soul!" she tried to struggle up, and the blades shatter into blue shards. Soul was in bad shape, barely breathing, and coughing up blood. Maka honestly wasn't quite sure how he was still alive at all. She looks around, trusting to find the person who had almost killed Soul, but there was no one in sight.

Nobody conscious. Soul's move had been a little too powerful. She heads over to the infirmary, finding hundreds of students knocked out by that massive disrupter wavelength Soul had generated.

She set him down on one of the beds, and woke up Nygus, who was the nearest person she knew with an extensive medical knowledge.

Nygus quickly began bandaging Soul, and as she worked she questioned Maka.

Maka honestly had no idea what had happened after she had been knocked out, so Nygus dropped the subject.

It looked like they would have to question Soul if-

_When_

-he got better.

(O.O)  
VVV

Death contemplates his dilemma. He had never seen anyone develop weapon skills so late in their development. He couldn't fathom what had come over the girl to attack her partner one moment, and carry him into the hospital the next.

In the old days, before the academy, he would have happily dissected her to learn of her powers, as well as finding out if anything was possessing her. But... She was one of the best meisters, daughter of Spirit, and maybe a future Deathscythe.

Death heaves a sigh. He probably should consult the rest of the Deathscythes about this matter, minus Spirit of course.

He couldn't risk having his new Deathscythe dead, Spirit treacherous over Maka, and Maka herself unable to... _Operate._

Death actually worried about what to do for the first time since the Kishin had died.

(O.O)  
VVV

Soul eventually wakes up to the faces of all his friends. His eyes wander around, and he visible flinches when he sees Maka's face.

She gets a saddened and puzzled look on her face. Soul mentally berates himself.

"Hey. What's up?"

BlackStar is gripping the drop tile ceiling with his bare feet. "You managed to knock every single person in Death city out for a few hours." his voice is dry. "and we missed the time schedule for my match."

Tsubaki smiles. "We're glad you are alright. You have been out for a few hours."

"Yeah," Maka butts her way into the conversation. "If you can't stop from knocking yourself out using that move, maybe you shouldn't use it."

Soul sinks deeper onto the bloodstained pillow. "I wasnt knocked out for long. I was the first to wake up."

Chrona, who had been hiding out of sight peers curiously at Soul. "But you just woke up. If you had earlier, you would have been the one to bring Maka here, not the other way around. Right?"

Soul shrugs.

Maka realizes that Chrona was right. Soul was so protective, she was surprised he hadn't brought her here. "So why didn't you?"

Soul stares off into silence for a few minutes, then yawns. "I got into a fight."

Tsubaki rolls her eyes. "Only you or BlackStar could accomplish that. Who did you fight?"

Again, a long silence.

"Another weapon, I think that they were a scythe like me."

Maka noticed he was being as vague as possible about his answers. She couldn't fathom why.

Wait.

Weren't those her father's blades sticking out of Soul?

Maka jumps up and races out the door.

Soul groans. "You better find her before she gets to Deathscythe. Spirit, not me."

BlackStar, Tsubaki and Chrona tear off after her.


	7. Chapter 7: The Third Scythe

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO SOUL?!" Maka had her father by the throat, not letting him breathe enough air to tell her.

Spirit is quite bewildered. He had been woken up by Maka hitting him, which wasn't that unusual, but normally he got an explanation. Maka was making little sense, almost crying about that Evans kid. He thinks. Maybe her soul got damaged, and she was blaming him? Spirit wasn't sure if it was possible to damage a soul without eating intact ones.

Maka was pried off his throat by three of her friends.

"Soul told us not to let you kill your father." Tsubaki hoped that was what he meant.

Maka calmed a little, but not much. "When I woke up, all of his blades were sticking out of Soul." she points a finger at her father.

Spirit attempts to defend himself. "I was asleep until you woke me up just now!" his whine for once didn't fall on deaf ears.

Maka crosses her arms. "So then how do you explain the blades?"

Death climbs through the mirror situated to Maka's left, and picks up Spirit with a giant hand. "I think you should ask soul that." he says, already turning back to the mirror. "I can verify that it wasn't Spirit here who did this to Soul." with that, he vanishes completely.

Maka and her friends again had no idea what could possibly have happened. They walked to the infirmary slowly, trying to puzzle it out. Maka swore up and down that it was her father's blades, while constantly being assured that this couldn't be the case, as Lord Death had vouched for him. They went in circle until they reached Soul.

"Lord Death told us to ask you about who attacked you." Maka puts her hand on her hip and glares at him.

Soul glares right back. "I don't care."

BlackStar was doing some other ridiculous workout. "But we need to know! How else are we going to beat them up?"

Soul's glare shifted targets. " I don't want to hurt the person who hurt me. It's complicated."

BlackStar rolls his eyes.

Maka leans in close. "If you don't tell us, we won't stop pestering you until you do. Make life easy on yourself."

Soul's eyes narrow and his voice grows loud enough to wake several of the still slumbering students. "Fine! I'll tell you, but first, Maka I need you to resonate with me."

Maka blinked twice and reachs out with her soul. Soul's soul was very agitated, and she had a hard time grabbing the recoiling tendrils of energy they had to connect to resonate. When she did finally resonate, she knew something was wrong.

Soul opens his eyes. Maka does the same, confused.

Soul carefully starts taking over Maka, syncing their movements against Maka's will. Soul starts with some basic control movements, flexing wrists and arms. Then, in both his and Maka's voice at the exact same time, "Ready?"

The rest of the room nods, dumbstruck.

Soul pops a blade out of his left arm, which causes one to pop out of Maka's. Then he pretends to pop another out of his right, which does nothing to him both causes Maka to sprout another blade. He does this several times, until Maka is covered in blades poking out at random angles.

The rest of the group had pinned themselves in a corner, trying not to get spiked by the increasingly sharp Maka.

Soul suddenly cuts off the resonance, leaving Maka with control of her body again. She isn't able to maintain the blades for long in her half hysterical state, and they shatter into brilliant blue chunks before Maka runs screaming from the room.

(O.O)  
VVV

Soul finds Maka curled up on a couch in their apartment. He had recovered very quickly due to Kim's healing magic, and he had been sent to find her.

"Maka?"

She doesn't move. Her eyes track slightly towards him, but never quite reach his face.

"Maka, get up."

Maka doesn't move.

"Maka, get up now or I will cut you in half." Soul puts an edge of steel into his voice. He'd only ever seen her shut down like this once before, when-

Maka's eyes widen at the threat. She slowly sits up and opens her mouth. No words come out.

"Today, I will teach you how to use your weapon form. At the end of the day, you will either be able to block my blades, or your going to need more stitches than I did."

The last time Maka had shut down like this, she hadn't snapped out of it until Stein had roughly taught her something new. When she was forced to think, she got better.

Maka tilts her head, and Soul decides to accept this as a nod.

Soul sits down on the couch, forcing Maka to move over. He then puts one hand on each of her shoulders and looks into her red and puffy eyes. "Maka, we are going to resonate now. We are going to. If you don't try, I'll..."

Soul draws a blank. He searchs for a punishment.

"...I'll make professor Stein fail you."

Maka's shallow breaths get deeper. Good, Soul is getting to her.

Soul initiates the resonance. Maka's soul is shaky but it is still able to connect. Once they connect, Soul brusquely guides her through the process of controlling her body's form. As they went, she relaxes more and more, her breathing becomes more regular and deeper.

Within an hour, Maka could control one blade off of her arm. She couldn't consciously control as many blades as she could unconsciously, but it was a start.

Once they broke soul resonance, Maka sags onto Soul. He lets her lie on his shoulder given the day she had. Soon, Maka's breathing becomes perfectly regular, as sure sign she was asleep. Soul gently extricated himself out from under the exhausted girl, and carries her to her bed. As soon as he closes the door, Maka opens her eyes.

Mentally, she berates herself for her behavior. She shouldn't have freaked out. She shouldn't have run. Soul had brought her back.

She had hidden powers that she didn't know how to use. Soul was helping her unlock them.

She had been practically catatonic. Soul had coached her out of her stupor.

Why was Soul always the answer to her problems?

It wasn't as though Maka was helpless on her own, but anytime she was in over her head, Soul had come to her rescue.

She heard his voice in her head. "It's because I'm you partner." the imaginary Soul said. "It's the weapon's job to protect the meister. No matter what, I will protect you, even if it costs me my life."

"But..."

"No matter what."

The imaginary Soul wins the argument easily. Maka sighs and rolls over. She needed to talk to the real Soul, not an imaginary construct.

She falls into a deep sleep.

Soul watches as Blair slinks into the apartment by way of kitchen window.

"Is Maka alright?" Blair looks disconcerted. She sits down at the table across from him.

"She'll be fine. She just need to sleep."

"Are you alright?" Blair's question causes Soul's face to harden.

"I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about."

Blair isn't convinced. "Right. Wait, let me guess. I've been practicing reading human emotions on Maka's papa. You... Are afraid... of Maka leaving you?"

Soul gives her a startled look. "How...?"

"Oh, Tsubaki told me. She's very smart about these things." Blair looks very pleased with herself.

Soul groans and sets his head in his hands. "Well, she's a weapon now. Weapons are not allowed to use one another except for very special circumstances. The sisters that Kid uses are an exception because of the fact that they're sisters and Death the Kid's personal weapons. They can get away with a lot. Maka and I? We're going to each get a new meister. Not that I'm going to have any trouble with volunteers." Soul leans back in his chair. Eyes closed, he heaves a sigh.

"I'm sure death will make an exception for you!"

"Why? I'm technically one of his tools now. I'm not supposed to be with Maka in any case."

"Oh." Blair is quiet for a minute. "I hope that you two can remain friends."

"Huh? Why wouldn't we?"

"Well, you've been kinda hard on her since you've gotten home. I don't want to see you two fight."

"Oh. Yeah, I should probably go apologize." Soul yawns. "But that can wait for morning."

(O.O)  
VVV

Despite Soul's assurances, Blair was worried. She had never seen such a one sided argument between the two.

Well, she had, but not with Soul being the loud one.

The most distressing part had been the fact Maka hadn't even put up a fight. She just did what she had been told to do, however harshly, without complaint.

Blair shapeshifts into a cat, and cuddles up to Maka where she lay in her bed.

In the next room over, Soul lies awake. In the dead calm night, he could hear a lot he usually missed.

A few people walk under his window, quietly muttering about the sleep enchantment that had plagued the entirety of Death City. A cat (Not Blair, he glanced at the window in time to see) pads its way across the windowsill. The refrigerator was ticking slightly as its motor winds down. Lastly, through the paper thin walls of their apartment, Soul can hear Blair purring in Maka's room.

He smiles to himself. Despite how much of a pain in the ass Blair was, making them have to start over soul collection, the "rude awakenings," and the chaos that seems to follow her around, Blair was still a cat. A good cat.

Soul falls asleep with a smile on his face.

(O.O)  
VVV

Maka wakes up early. Her emotions had really tired her out last night, but now she felt as if she had a new lease on life.

Next to her lies a sleeping cat, all stretched out and purring softly.

She gently strokes it's fur, thinking about what she'd dreamed. After a few minutes, she stands up, stretches, and begins a task she had decided unconsciously was the best course of action.

She quietly packs a bag of clothes and supplies.

In her dreams, she'd had a lengthy conversation with Soul.

She couldn't remember much, such is the way with dreams. She did remember the outcome.

"We should each find a new partner."

She remembered the conviction her mental construct of Soul had. She had cried in her dreams, she had begged and pleaded, asking him to reconsider.

He pleas had been met with a low grumble that Maka interpreted as laughter.

She glances down at the cat lying on the bed next to the dent she had made by sleeping there. Maybe senses really do influence your dreams.

"let's see. I need this book, this book, hmm..." She scans over a lot of old textbooks, none of which she had touched in over a year. "No, I can live without those." her finger traces down the spines of other books randomly arranged on the shelf. "Wait, what book is this?" she quickly leafs through the pages. "I don't remember this one, I don't think I've ever read-"

She had arrived at a page she did recognize.

"CPR"

She slams the book shut and chucks it out the window. Someone yells as the moderately heavy book landed on some part of his anatomy.

Why had she done that? She starts wondering to herself. Was it because she associated _that_ memory with it? That didn't make much sense since deep down she had liked the kissing part, if not the glue part.

Suddenly, Maka's mind, not knowing how to handle itself, separates itself into separate viewpoints.

Inner Maka, the one closest to actual Maka (She's a rather straightforward girl, not one for mind games) stands in the center teachers position of a classroom. In the student's seats, her differing opinions sit looking at her.

One off in the corner raises its hand. "If I may?"

Maka let's the opinion clone with logic scrawled across her forehead stand next to her. Logic was her best friend after all.

(O.O)  
VVV

After a long, long debate, Maka's head drops into her hands.

"So, we are agreed. We like Soul. Possibly enough to be his boyfriend."

There is a lot of nods.

"And do we think he likes us back?"

This time the vote is tied half and half. Probably not exactly, but not the point.

"Ok, so what would we do to keep him?"

Logic glances at her askance. "She means, what would we do to keep him as a partner? Try to be clearer."

In her mindscape, she turns invisible, just to annoy another fraction of her ever shattering mind.

In response to the question, the separate opinions gave answers varying from "Anything!" to "Ask Death for a favor." to "Nothing really, unless we had good reason."

Maka dismisses "class," and all the students walk up to and merge with her until only logic remains.

The whole argument had cause one hell of a headache.

"Wasn't this supposed to be about why I threw a book out a window?"

Logic shrugged. "Have you been getting cramps lately?" a twitch of a smile on the lips.

Maka smashes an imaginary fist into her representation of logic and opens her eyes in the real world.

Damn it, she was having cramps.

(O.O)  
VVV

Death summons Soul and Maka to his chambers before classes start. Maka had abandoned her packing when Soul had stuck his head in and asked her why she was late for breakfast. She hadn't had a chance to get back to it.

Death looks down on them ponderously. Or at least as ponderously as he could with that stupid mask he wears.

Soul has his eyes closed and his head facing upward. He's barely listening to the light tone of Spirits voice, instead focusing on a piece of music that he had been trying to write for a week.

"...so what are you planning on doing about this?" Spirit looks at Soul expectantly.

Soul shrugs his shoulders.

Spirit looks about ready to tear him a new one, but Death grabs the back of his collar with two oversized fingers and restrains him.

"I'm sure that Soul will want to remain with Maka if at all possible." Death answers for the only half there Soul. "But that does put us in a rather interesting situation."

Maka stares at the floor, almost unmoving. She had barely said a word all morning.

Soul had woken up to an irate man complaining about flying books.

He hadn't taken much stock in it, since Maka would never toss one of her books out the window, and she'd kill anyone who tried to do it to her precious tomes. But with her current demeanor, and how odd she'd been since last night, Soul was starting to have second thoughts.

Death continues his monologue, aware that Soul is barely listening, Spirit is seething at Soul and Maka is still in her most unusual stupor.

"I think that since it's such an unprecedented case, I'll make a special allowance. Maka, Soul, you two are to attempt to bring Maka's weapon form under control. You have one week. After that, further decisions will have to be made concerning your continued partnership. Dismissed!" the last word is said in a bright, cheery tone that completely didn't match with the current situation.

Maka and Soul walk through the halls to nowhere in particular. Maka is the first to break the heavy silence.

"Was Lord Death correct?"

Soul turns to his partner who, to his chagrin, is trembling slightly. "About what?"

"You still want to be my partner?"

"Duh." Soul snorts. "I can't think of a better meister in this whole academy."

"Oh!" Maka's downtrodden expression lightens a bit.

"Why do you ask?" Soul yawns, his very pointy teeth glinting slightly.

"I had a dream, and you... Well you wanted us to go our separate ways."

Soul stops dead in his tracks. "Wait, so the reason you've been upset was because of a dream."

Maka nods.

"That's ridiculous. It's my job to protect you. I can't do that if your somewhere else."

With that, Soul continues down the corridor, leaving an incredulous and slightly affronted girl in his wake.

Slowly, a grin spreads across her face. She runs and catches up.

"So, we have a week to get me into proper weapon condition," Maka begins.

(O.O)  
VVV

Two blades sprout from Maka's arms. Soul watches silently as Tsubaki and BlackStar admire the blades.

Maka had come pretty far on her first day. She hadn't managed to get more than what she is currently displaying, but it is an improvement over the stubby three inch blade from last night.

Death the Kid lies down in a bed in the hospital room where Maka is demonstrating her new ability. The Thompsons both sit nearby, Patty torn between watching Maka and looking for any sight of life from Kid.

Maka, exhausted as she is from the training, suddenly stumbles and the blades collapse in a shower of crystal. Soul quickly grabs her arm and pulls an energy bar out of his pocket. "Here, eat this."

Maka gratefully accepts the food, eager to replace the body mass she had just lost to the crystal.

"You know, Maka, with the amount of weight you're losing to this training, I think we should call this weight loss program the crystal meth-"

Death the Kid suddenly sits up and yells.

Soul slowly finishes his sentence as Kid pants heavily and his multilayered eyes shift back into focus. "The crystal method."

Patty and Liz practically smother Kid with all the hugging and crying that they doing.

Kid seems happy to see his weapons are OK. "That has got to be the most interesting dream I've ever had." His voice is back to its normal monotone. "Every time I straightened a portrait, another would become crooked."

Liz, still clutching the stoic boy tightly, says "I'm sure it was horrible!"

Patty nods her head in agreement.

Kid looks at his surroundings. "You know, our group spends more time in this room than every other person in the Academy combined?"

BlackStar pipes up. "Well, we are the best. We brought down the Kishin, I'm a star, you're death's son, Soul is the first Deathscythe since Maka's dad, Tsubaki is awesome, and Liz and Patty are..." BlackStar seems to run out of things to say.

"The best balance to an extremely eccentric problem." Maka says between mouthfuls. When Liz glares at her, Maka just shrugs and grins, showing teeth covered in granola.

Kid seemingly ignores the sisters and looks at Soul. "Nice hair."

"Yeah. Modeled off of yours."

"If that had truly been your aim, you might have at least made it symmetrical."

"Bite me."

Kid cracks a small smile. "I'm glad everyone is alright." He swings his legs of the side of the bed and stands up before anyone can protest. "Now, what was this about Maka?"

Everyone else states at him for a moment.

"Um," Tsubaki starts. "How did you know about that?"

"I was completely aware the entire time. I was just unable to move."

Patty, and BlackStar immediately turn beet red.

Kid ignore the blushing duo and walks for the door. "I'm going to see my father. If anyone else would like to come along, I would appreciate some questions answered."


	8. Chapter 8: The Last Dance

Tsubaki had elected not to head out with the group, instead leaving the academy and heading for the local Moonbucks.

There, in a small both, nursing a giant cup of coffee, sits Cooper. He looks up and grin when she approaches. Despite herself Tsubaki matches his smile.

"How's my favorite weapon doing?" His low voice reverberates throughout the store, cause a few quick glances.

"I'm doing fine. How are you today?"

Cooper shrugs his shoulders. "Could be better." His smile falters. "I think someone decided to rat on me."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Stein was giving me a hungry look in class today."

Tsubaki shudders. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Cooper inks for a minute. "Do you have a place for me to stay for a while? My house is listed in the books, so that won't be safe for long."

Tsubaki nods. "I can house you, though BlackStar's and my apartment is a little small."

Cooper looks up, amused. "I'm surprised you're comfortable sleeping around the little pervert."

Tsubaki tucks her hair behind her ear. "I have a really good lock, a sturdy door, and the least stealth ninja as a partner. I manage."

The conversation goes back and forth for half an hour, talking about the most inane things.

Cooper sighs and leans back. "Man, it's so nice to just be able to talk, you know?"

"And not even about work." Tsubaki agrees.

Cooper leans his elbow on the table. "You know, I'm glad you don't think badly of me. Most people kind of... turn off, I guess, when they learn my secret."

Tsubaki pats his clasped hands on the table. "Consider who I hang out with. My best friend has a Deathscythe as a partner and can see souls. Death the Kid is literally a fraction of Death himself. Not to mention my own partner." She rolls her eyes.

Cooper stretches and reaches for his wallet as he walks to the front desk.

Tsubaki catches up with him and hands him a 20 dollar note.

"Thanks for the talk. It's nice to get a break from the chaos." She leaves the building before he has a chance to respond.

Tsubaki skips all the way to her apartment, more happy than she'd been in a good while.

Of course, once she opens the door, her mood drops to a new low. On the couch, BlackStar and Patty are lying on top of each other, staring right back at the new arrival.

"Hey, Tsubaki!" BlackStar calls out cheerily. "What's-"

Tsubaki slams the door closed and decides to take a walk.

Patty shifts her hips in a way that makes BlackStar grunt. "What was that about?"

BlackStar does his best to shrug. "Now where were we?"

Patty leans down and kisses him.

"Oh, right." BlackStar beams once they surface for air.

(O.O)  
VVV

Maka and Soul spar in the local park. Normally, in hand to hand combat, Maka severely outmatches Soul. This fight has some special requirements. Soul and Maka and only fighting with Scythe blades. Soul is clearly holding back, but is definitely not letting his guard down. What Maka lacks in skill she makes up for sheer numbers. Soul can only turn into one blade at once, but Maka can throw two or three blades at once. It really didn't help that every time she starts to increase in skill, the blades shatter and Maka almost passes out from the massive loss in body mass.

During one such snack break, Maka sidles up right next to Soul. "Hey."

Soul looks up from his egg salad sandwich. "Mmm?"

"I just wanted to know something."

"You want to know a lot of things."

Maka snorts, then coughs as a bit of sandwich gets stuck in her throat. Once she manages to rid her air passageways of any debris, she continues. "If we manage to get me to a fighting state by next week, what do you think will happen?"

"We'll probably get split up. You get a meister, and I get sent to Antarctica."

Maka frowns. "I'd rather we kept together."

"Me too, but look at all the other Deathscythes. They all got separated from their partners."

Maka fumbles around in her head, lying down on the grass. "Soul?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not sure I want to be without you."

"We literally just had this conversation." Soul flops down beside her.

"No, not just... I want to be with you forever."

Soul doesn't react for a second. Then he sits bolt upright. "Wait, what?"

Maka sits up as well, just a lot slower, and looks into Soul's widening eyes. "I want to be with you forever."

"I... I..." A smile creeps slowly across his face. "Sounds like a sweet deal to me."

Maka pulls him into her and kisses him for all she's worth. Which, given Souls emphatic return, is a lot.

(O.O)  
VVV

One week later, Tsubaki and Cooper walk hand in hand to the event that is being held at the DWMA. Both are looking sharp, Cooper in a tuxedo and Tsubaki in a flowing dark green dress.

Nobody knows what this event was about, all the teachers had been very uninformative all week... not that many people noticed. Being a school full of gossipy girls, the news that there not just one or two but three new official couples had pretty much consumed the conversations for the entire week.

One of these was Cooper and Tsubaki, who had developed a bond much quicker than anyone thought possible. The two are both normally very shy, both are both so happy in each other's company that they were practically inseparable.

The party is being held at Death's palace, which is unusual. It had always been in the ballroom before.

Once the duo arrives at the door, they are greeted by Death the Kid. He politely informs them that the reason for the party would be announced after everyone ate.

A crash can be heard as a picture falls off the wall. The symmetry of the room is broken, and Kid twitches, surely knowing what happened, but refusing to turn around.

Death himself sweeps over to the broken picture and with a snap of his fingers, the glass disappears and the frame with the picture float back up to the wall.

Tsubaki and Cooper enter the hall. Both immediately notice that none of their close friends are in the room.

Cooper decides to ask Taubaki, in case he was missing them. "Didn't Maka say that she and Soul were going to be here really early?"

Tsubaki nods and continues scanning the crowd for her meister.

Suddenly, there is another commotion on the other side of the large ballroom.

BlackStar has someone pinned against a wall. He seems to be threatening them with something small.

Tsubaki runs through the crowd in time to catch a low growl from BlackStar's throat and a scared ribbit from the girl pinned to the wall.

Wait, ribbit?

Tsubaki glances down and sees that BlackStar has a pistol in his hands. Not just any pistol, but either Liz or Patty. And she had a strong suspicion which.

"What are you up to, witch?" BlackStar spits out the last word like venom.

"Hey! I don't want to be here. It's Death's orders. Ribbit."

Tsubaki hadn't recognized Eruka until this moment. Without her distinctive frog hat and patchwork dress, she looked a lot different.

At this point, Death bursts through the crowd. "Hey, hey! BlackStar, put that away and let our guest go."

"Guest?" His mouth drops open. "But she's-"

"A witch, yes. What is your point?"

The gun trembles in BlackStar's grip. "But she worked with Medusa! She hurt Chrona!"

"And she isn't getting away with that. Right now though, she is here for a very important reason." Death lays a giant hand across BlackStars back and waits for the fiery boy to calm down.

BlackStar suddenly steps away and flips the gun over his shoulder. Patty transforms and lands on her feet with a flourish. Several of the spectators clap.

"I've got my eyes on you." He looks straight at the frog witch. "Death says your a guest, but make one wrong move..." He lets the threat hang in the air.

Eruka puts her hands up in placating gesture. "I'm not stupid enough to do something in a room full of meisters and weapons. And Medusa was a sick, twisted bitch that stuffed snakes down our throats to keep us in line."

BlackStar backs away a few steps and turns. He let's Patty slip her arm through his and they step walk away at a brisk pace.

Cooper is the first to break the silence. "BlackStar is actually dressed properly. That's a first."

"Yeah, well, it wouldn't do for him to look sloppy for his date."

Cooper puts his arm on Tsubaki's shoulder. "Let's go get something to eat."

Tsubaki let's herself be guided to the table.

Behind the curtains on the raised platform dominating the back wall, Soul grimaces at the sight of the altercation.

Maka steps up behind him. "Don't worry about them. If Eruka wants to, Death gave her that pendant to help her escape."

"Yeah. I just wish it didn't have to come out like that."

Maka puts her hand on Soul's shoulder. "You aren't nervous?"

"Actually, yeah. I can't believe what I have to do. I'm not that good."

"Soul, you are excellent, nobody is as good as you."

"Thanks, but I'll believe it when I see it."

The sounds of people feasting reaches their ears. "Well, we'll find out in another twenty minutes."

(O.O)  
VVV

Once the crowd quotes down after finishing their meal, Death clears his throat. "Good evening, everyone. I have a few announcements to make. First of all, the DWMA is instituting a new policy that puts teams of meisters and weapons together to form units for extended operations. Sid has informed me of the groups that work well together, so no worries there. Second, the DWMA is inducting several members into our ranks."

He pauses as the crowd gasps in shock as Eruka, Free, Kim, and Chrona take the stage. Most of the students had heard of these people, and seen pictures of them in newspapers with the exception of Kim, who most knew as a student.

"All of these people have demonstrated that they are quite willing to fight against everything Medusa, the witches, and the Kishin stand for."  
Death sighs. "I know that they might receive a cold welcome for past misdeeds, but I have personally verified that they have properly atoned for their crimes."

Free's smile visibly slips before he regains his composure.

Death continues. "Free and Eruka have provided us with valuable information, corroborated by Kid's work in the field. It seems that someone is turning people into extremely powerful Kishin eggs, which are becoming very problematic in southern Europe as we speak. This is in part why we are assigning groups."

Death clears his throat. "I think Kid should explain the rest."

The curtains open and Kid stand in the center stage, arms crossed and staring out over the crowd. "My father has made the decision to step down as Shinigami. I am the new lord death in his place, if only in name for the time being."

He spreads his arms out and opens his palms. Two figure walk out of the shadows and into the light. Maka and Spirit stand on either side of him. Then, as quick as a blink, they both transform into scythes and leap into his hands. They twin scythes are completely identical, and Kid wields one of them in each hand. "I will fill my father's place to the best of my ability, but I will also be going out missions. I was assigned to a group,mjust as everyone else has been."

Kid looks out over the audience, who wear looks of shock and bewilderment. "I know that this is a lot, but we have one more major announcement. Death City is being abandoned."

The uproar that meets his words is tremendous. Cries of "What?" reverberate off the walls.

Death the Kid steps aside and allows a previously hidden Soul to appear.

Soul clears his throat. "Unfortunately, Death City's location has been compromised. Until a new Academy can be erected, all groups are to remain active."

Soul hesitates.

"Death wanted me to inform all of you that we are going to inform the general public of this tomorrow, so please keep this under wraps until then. In the meantime, we are going to have a dance. This is the last dance that the DWMA is having in the forseeable future, so please take this opportunity."

Soul walks over to a piano that the curtains move further aside to reveal. Soul sits down and lets one finger drop, sending a high note through the air.

Slowly, more and more notes are added to the atmosphere, and people start to get up and grab partners. The song Soul plays lasts for a good five minutes, while the entire room dances somberly. Maka and Spirit, returned to their human forms, dance with the rest of them.

"Wow. Even BlackStar is somber." Maka comments.

"Yes, he is." Spirit says. "Maka, I just wanted..." he chokes up a bit. "I just wanted to say that I'm glad you and Soul are together. I know we don't get along, but I can see that you two do."

Maka looks up at her father. He has small trails of tears coming from his eyes. Maka internally is very grateful he hadn't broken down sobbing as usual.

"Thank you. That means a lot."

Spirit just nods and they continue dancing.

After Soul steps away from the piano, BlackStar pulls out a record player and pulls out a record.

"Alright, enough of the serious stuff. I came here to PARTY!"

The needle hits the vinyl and a lively tune starts playing. The mood immediately lifts and people start dancing a lot more furiously.

Soul watches from his spot at the dinner tables, absentmindedly eating his food.

Spirit wanders over. "So."

Soul grunts. "They forget so quickly, don't they. This is their last chance at normalcy, so they forget everything that just happened and dance."

Spirit nods. "Yeah. But it's nice. Nobody's killing each other."

Soul snorts. "That is an improvement."

"So, are you planning on buying my daughter a ring?"

Soul looks up at Spirit slack jawed. "I decided to wait a bit."

"Why? Even I can see that she loves you dearly."

"There's a war coming. I'm unwilling to commit myself to anything when one of might not make it out alive."

Spirit grimaces. "I understand your reasons, even if I don't agree."

Spirit goes quiet for a while. "What, no jabs about getting relationship advice from me?"

Soul swallows another bite of sushi. "I figured that we'd keep it civil, if only for Maka's sake."

Spirit nods and watches his daughter shake her hips with Tsubaki and Liz to the beat of La Vida Loco.

Suddenly, Blair arrives at the table. "Either of you handsome men want to dance?"

Spirit literally jumps at the chance.

Soul sighs and turns back to his mostly empty plate.

(O.O)  
VVV

Once the music gets a little less energetic, Maka spies Chrona standing in the corner, watching. She heads over to him.

"Hey. You're looking nice."

Chrona looks down at his tuxedo. "Marie said that It wouldn't do for me to wear a dress, and took me out shopping. She said it would help me with girls, but I don't think it's working. There are three girls that keep making me nervous."

Maka laughs and makes a mental note to kill Marie later.

"Anyway, care to dance?" Maka asks.

"Oh, I don't know. That would involve going out into the crowd, and your with Soul, so he might get jealous-"

Maka rolls her eyes. "I don't see him dancing with me. And you have to get used to crowds eventually."

Maka practically drags Chrona onto the dance floor.

BlackStar and Patty are dancing as well. They're all over the floor, with a completely random non-pattern that guarantee them a wide berth. Tsubaki and Cooper dance together, only occasionally glancing at the antics in the center of the floor.

Kim had been accosted by Ox and is grudgingly warming up to him.

Free and Eruka move with the tune both smiling broadly.

All in all, everything was right with the world for almost everyone, if only for the night.


End file.
